SAN DIEGO · $119/HR · NO DEPOSIT

Encanto Movers

Big lots, long side yards and outbuildings give southeastern San Diego's most rural feeling neighborhood its own kind of move.

📞 (858) 490-0155 Instant Estimate →

By the Discount Movers Team · Updated August 2026 · CAL-T #201759 issued by the BHGS · US DOT #4372335 · BBB A+ Rated

The Direct Answer

What Does A Move
In Encanto Cost?

Discount Movers charges $119 an hour cash for two movers and a truck in Encanto, on our own published ladder that runs to $269 an hour cash for five movers. The three hour minimum is $357, there is a flat $75 fuel fee, and there is no deposit, ever.

What moves the number here is the carry starts at the property line: parcels in Encanto run larger than the San Diego norm, with long side yards, gated fences and homes set back from the street. The full rate card is one page, and the instant estimate returns a crew size and an hourly rate in about 30 seconds.

Housing Stock & Access

Encanto Homes
& Access

Lot size is what separates an Encanto move from the rest of southeastern San Diego. The neighborhood keeps a semi-rural feel inside the city, with older homes on larger parcels, long side yards, sheds and sometimes small animal setups, and lightly improved driveways on some streets. The hills fold the street grid so that routes wander, and the load itself tends to include outdoor and outbuilding contents that a standard walkthrough misses.

The carry starts at the property line

Parcels in Encanto run larger than the San Diego norm, with long side yards, gated fences and homes set back from the street. The distance from the truck to the door is often the longest leg of the job. We plan around that on-property carry, and gates opened and paths cleared beforehand shave real time off an hourly clock.

Outbuildings are part of the inventory

Sheds, workshops, garages and the occasional barn style setup carry a real share of an Encanto household, and they are the share most often left out of the description. Tools, equipment and yard machinery need draining, wrapping and honest weight estimates. Tell us about every structure on the lot when you book and the quote will survive contact with the day.

Driveways the truck may not love

Some streets here still run to a semi-rural standard, with narrow, steep or lightly paved driveways that a 26 foot truck should not attempt. We ask about the driveway surface and slope up front, and where the truck cannot reach the house we stand it at the street and plan the carry, which a larger crew absorbs easily.

Hills that fold the street grid

Encanto's hills bend the grid so that streets wander, dead end and reappear under new names, and the straight line to an address rarely exists on the ground. The driver routes ahead of time with the truck's turning circle in mind. It costs a few minutes of planning and saves backing a loaded truck down a hill in front of the neighbors.

The 94 close, the 805 near

Imperial Avenue and the 94 give Encanto quick regional reach, with the 805 a short hop west, so travel time is rarely the problem on these jobs. The corridors pinch at commute hours like everywhere else. We put the loaded driving between the peaks and spend the saved minutes where this neighborhood actually needs them, on the property itself.

Every Encanto address is different. Send us a photo of the street and the entrance and we will tell you what the access means for your crew size, your carry and your estimate.

📞 (858) 490-0155

Where We Work

Encanto
Areas We Cover

📍 North Encanto

📍 South Encanto

📍 Valencia Park

📍 Emerald Hills

📍 Broadway Heights

📍 Imperial Avenue

Nine Neighborhoods Under One Plan Name

Encanto is a place name that covers more ground than most people expect. The City of San Diego's Encanto Neighborhoods Community Plan takes in Alta Vista, Broadway Heights, Emerald Hills, Encanto, Jamacha, Lomita, North Encanto, South Encanto and Valencia Park. Encanto is both the name of the plan area and the name of one neighborhood inside it, which is why two people can each say they live in Encanto and mean streets that never touch.

None of the nine is a city and none is a district. They are neighborhoods, and the reason to know the difference is that a listing, a lease or a booking form uses whichever name the person writing it grew up with. Tell us Alta Vista, Jamacha or Lomita and you get the same crew and the same rate as a job written up as Encanto. What changes is which arterial the driver comes off and how long the walk is once the truck is standing still.

City of San Diego, All Of It

Every Encanto address is inside the City of San Diego. Not unincorporated county, not East County, whatever the neighborhood's semi-rural feel suggests. Lemon Grove is a separate incorporated city to the east and northeast, and unincorporated county land in the Spring Valley area lies out beyond it.

The line only matters on move day if you cross it, and plenty of Encanto households do. Trash service, the water agency and the permitting authority all change when a household moves from Encanto into Lemon Grove or out into county territory, even though the streets on both sides look identical and went in during the same decades. Set the new accounts up against the correct jurisdiction rather than against the mailing address, because the mailing address will not tell you. For anything that runs through City Hall, Encanto sits in San Diego City Council District 4, and the dominant ZIP code is 92114.

Chollas Creek Decides Which Blocks Connect

There is no river in Encanto. What runs through it is Chollas Creek, in canyon fingers and channelized reaches that thread between the neighborhoods rather than following one visible course. The nearest actual rivers are the Sweetwater River to the south through Bonita and the San Diego River to the north through Mission Valley, and neither one figures in a move here.

The creek does. Those canyon fingers are the reason the pavement pattern breaks up. Two houses can face each other across open ground with no street between them, because the land drops into a drainage and the asphalt stops at the rim on both sides. When we ask which cross street or which arterial your block comes off, that is exactly what we are checking. Routing a loaded truck by how close two points look, instead of by whether they connect, is how a driver ends up at the closed end of a canyon street with a full box behind him.

The Arterials A 26 Foot Truck Can Actually Use

The truck-capable streets in Encanto are the arterials: Imperial Avenue, Euclid Avenue, Skyline Drive, Broadway, and the numbered streets such as 62nd and 65th. Federal Boulevard runs along the northern edge as a bounding arterial, so it is useful for reaching Encanto and much less useful for crossing it. A driver who plans to cut through the middle on Federal has planned a route that does not exist.

Off the arterials the pattern changes within a block. Residential streets are narrow with cars parked both sides, the canyon fingers cut the connections, and hillside streets end without a turnaround at the top. We settle the approach before the truck is committed to it. Every other access problem in Encanto costs minutes. An unscouted dead end with a loaded truck already at the top of it costs the afternoon, and a photograph sent the week before removes the risk entirely.

Trolley Crossings On The Imperial Corridor

The MTS Orange Line follows the Imperial Avenue corridor through Encanto along the adjacent former rail right of way, with stations at 47th Street, Euclid Avenue and Encanto/62nd Street. Those are at-grade crossings. Nothing is tunneled and nothing is flown over.

Two things follow for a move. A truck cannot stage across the tracks, so a loading position that puts the tailgate on one side of a crossing and the front door on the other is not a position we will take, however good the parking looks. And the crossing gates cycle on their own schedule, so a lane that works at first light turns into a blocked lane every few minutes once service builds. If your building sits on Imperial near one of those three stations, we look for the loading position on the far side of the block from the crossing and accept the longer carry instead.

Almost No Elevators, Plenty Of Third Floor Stairs

Encanto is essentially all detached single-family houses, and there is no high-rise in it. That one fact removes most of the building-side paperwork that shapes moves elsewhere in San Diego. No freight elevator reservation, no certificate of insurance for a management company, no loading dock window that expires at noon.

The multifamily that does exist is two and three story walk-up apartment and townhome buildings, clustered on Imperial Avenue, Euclid Avenue and the other arterials rather than scattered through the residential blocks. So an elevator move is rare here and the genuine multifamily job is a third floor walk-up with an exterior stair. That turns into a crew size decision rather than an equipment decision. Two movers on a third floor walk-up spend most of the day on the stair; four movers at $219 an hour cash keep the stair loaded in both directions and usually hand back the shorter clock.

Strip Retail Means The Curb Is Already Spoken For

Encanto has no mall and no single town center. Day to day retail runs as strip commercial along Imperial Avenue, Euclid Avenue and Skyline Drive, storefronts fronting the arterial with shallow lots and curb cuts every few hundred feet.

That shapes the curb for anyone moving into or out of a unit above or behind one of those strips. The competition for space is not other residents. It is delivery vehicles working the storefronts and buses working the stops on the same arterial, both of which have a stronger claim to that curb than a moving truck does. We would rather set up on the residential side street around the corner and walk the extra distance than hold a travel lane on Imperial or Euclid with a bus stacking up behind the tailgate.

Why The Parcels Are Still This Big

The lot pattern predates the freeways. Encanto grew up as a semi-rural settlement of small farms and large subdivided lots well outside the built-up city, and the city eventually grew out to meet it rather than the other way around. Nobody went back and redrew the parcels. That is the direct cause of the frontage width, the depth behind the house and the outbuildings still standing on so many of these properties. The name itself is Spanish for enchantment.

None of that shows up on a map today. It shows up on the ground, and it shows up on the clock, which is why an Encanto walkthrough takes longer than the square footage suggests it should.

A Center Of San Diego's Black Community

From the middle of the twentieth century onward, Encanto, Valencia Park and Emerald Hills became a center of San Diego's Black community, as families moved southeast out of Logan Heights. Emerald Hills is known as a historically African American homeowner neighborhood.

We put that here because it is part of what the name carries and because the people who live on these streets know it. It changes no rate and no crew size. A crew that treats Encanto as an anonymous stretch of southeastern San Diego is simply not paying attention to the place it is working in.

One District, Two High School Clusters

Encanto is served by San Diego Unified School District, and there is no separate elementary district here. That differs from parts of East County, where a separate elementary district and a separate high school district both cover the same address and a family has two sets of enrollment paperwork. In Encanto one district handles it end to end.

The complication sits inside the district. Encanto addresses split between two San Diego Unified high school clusters, so the attendance area high school changes depending on which side of the neighborhood the address sits on. Houses a short walk apart can feed different schools. Confirm the school for the specific address on the district's school finder before choosing the house, not after the offer is accepted, because nobody can draw that boundary from the neighborhood name alone.

Charter enrollment is common in this part of San Diego as well, which means the school a family is moving for is often not the school their street is zoned to. That is the part that sets your move date. A household following a zoned school is tied to the district calendar. A household whose children are already enrolled at a charter elsewhere may have no calendar constraint at all, and can pick a date that suits the house.

One Truck And Two Trips, Or Two Trucks

On most San Diego jobs the cheaper answer to an overflowing load is one truck and a second trip. On an Encanto hillside street the arithmetic can flip. If the street dead ends without a turnaround, or the only approach is a narrow block with cars both sides, every return trip means threading the same truck back through the same pinch while the crew stands on the clock waiting for it.

So we settle it in advance rather than at two in the afternoon with half a house on the front lawn. Tell us the street, whether it closes at the end, and whether the truck will reach the house or stand at the corner. A second truck adds $150 plus a second $75 fuel charge, and that only goes on an Encanto job when one truck genuinely cannot clear the property in one pass. Justifying it is our job, not a guess we hand to you on the day.

What Our Crews Plan For Here

Truck-capable streets: Imperial Avenue, Euclid Avenue, Skyline Drive, Broadway, and numbered streets including 62nd and 65th.

Federal Boulevard is a bounding arterial on the northern edge. It gets you to Encanto, not across it.

Orange Line crossings at 47th Street, Euclid Avenue and Encanto/62nd Street are at grade. The truck never stages across the tracks, and gates cycle through the loading window.

Canyon fingers of Chollas Creek break the street connections. Two blocks close together on a map may have no pavement between them, so we route by the arterial the block comes off.

Multifamily here is two and three story walk-up on Imperial and Euclid. Assume an exterior stair and no elevator, and size the crew for it.

Hillside residential streets dead end without a turnaround. We scout the approach before the truck is committed.

On the Imperial, Euclid and Skyline strip retail frontages, the curb competition is delivery vehicles and bus stops, so we usually set up on the residential side street.

Council District 4 and ZIP 92114 for permit and utility paperwork. Moving east into Lemon Grove or county territory changes trash, water and permitting authority.

FAQ

Encanto Moving
Questions

Can the truck come up my driveway?+

Only if the driveway can honestly take it. Some Encanto drives are narrow, steep or lightly paved, and a loaded 26 foot truck is heavy. Describe the surface and slope when you book, or send a photo, and we will either bring the truck in or stand it at the street and plan the carry.

Will you move my shed and workshop contents too?+

Yes, and please tell us about them up front. Outbuildings hold a large share of Encanto households, and they are the most commonly omitted part of a job description. Fuel needs draining from any equipment before the day, and we handle the wrapping, loading and the honest extra time they take.

Do larger lots make a move cost more?+

They add carry distance, which adds time on an hourly rate. The fix is preparation and crew size: gates open, paths clear, and a third or fourth mover to keep the long walk fed. Our own published rates run from $119 per hour cash for two movers up to $269 for five, with a three hour minimum of $357.

My street dead ends on a hill. Is that a problem for the truck?+

It is a routing detail we handle ahead of time. The hills here fold the grid, and streets wander and dead end, so the driver plans the approach and the turnaround before arriving rather than improvising with a loaded truck. If your street is tight, we position at the nearest workable point and carry the difference.

Which neighborhoods count as Encanto?+

The City's Encanto Neighborhoods Community Plan area covers Alta Vista, Broadway Heights, Emerald Hills, Encanto, Jamacha, Lomita, North Encanto, South Encanto and Valencia Park. Encanto is both the plan area name and one neighborhood inside it. Any of those nine books at the same rate with us. The name only tells the driver which arterial to come off.

Is my Encanto address in the City of San Diego or in the county?+

The city. All of Encanto sits inside City of San Diego limits, in Council District 4, with 92114 as the dominant ZIP. Lemon Grove to the east and northeast is a separate incorporated city, and unincorporated county land in the Spring Valley area is beyond that. If your move crosses either line, trash service, the water agency and the permitting authority change even though the streets look the same.

My apartment on Euclid Avenue is a third floor walk-up. How do you handle that here?+

With crew size, because there is no other lever. Encanto has no high-rise and the multifamily on Imperial and Euclid is two and three story walk-up, so an exterior stair is the normal case and an elevator is the rare one. Two movers on a third floor stair spend the day climbing it. Four movers at $219 an hour cash keep it loaded in both directions. Tell us the floor when you book and we will size it honestly.

Can you park the truck on Imperial Avenue near the trolley crossing?+

Not across the tracks, ever. The Orange Line follows the Imperial corridor with at-grade crossings at 47th Street, Euclid Avenue and Encanto/62nd Street, and the gates cycle right through a loading window. If your address is near one of those crossings we position on the far part of the block or on the side street and take the longer carry rather than work a spot that gets cut in half every few minutes.

Why do you ask which arterial my street comes off instead of just taking the address?+

Because the canyon fingers of Chollas Creek break the grid in Encanto. Blocks that sit close together often have no street connecting them, since the ground drops into a drainage and the pavement ends on both rims. Knowing whether you come off Imperial, Euclid, Skyline, Broadway or one of the numbered streets tells the driver the only approach that actually reaches your door.

Will my dead-end street mean you need a second truck?+

Sometimes, and we decide it before the day rather than during it. Elsewhere a second trip beats a second truck. On an Encanto street that closes without a turnaround, each return trip drags the same truck back through the same pinch with the crew idle on the clock. A second truck adds $150 plus a second $75 fuel charge, and we only put it on the job if one truck cannot clear the property in one pass.

Should I plan my Encanto move around the school calendar?+

It depends which school your household is actually following. Encanto is all San Diego Unified with no separate elementary district, unlike parts of East County, but addresses here split between two high school clusters, so check the specific address on the district's school finder rather than assuming the neighborhood feeds one school. Charter enrollment is also common, and a family already at a charter often has no calendar constraint at all and can take whichever date suits the house.