If you search just about any major city’s Craiglist free listing pages, you are likely to find an assortment of pianos and organs that people are willing to give away, with one catch……..you have to move it. There is good reason for that, as pianos are arguably the hardest items to safely transport. Many moving companies just don’t do it right, and most customers don’t know what to look for and ask about, so this will shed some light on the basics.
An upright piano is by far the easiest to move. For the most part they can be handled like furniture, as long as they are properly strapped down and secured, and not stacked on or around.
Grand and Baby Grand pianos are completely different animals. Sometimes when I am quoting a job involving one, I will ask the customer what their other estimators said about their piano, just to see if their other quotes were from people who actually knew what they were doing. Roughly 75% of the time the client tells me nothing at all was even mentioned, and nothing specific was outlined on the written quote pertaining to the piano. This is a huge red flag.
These pianos require very special handling and specific packing materials to ensure safe shipment, preferable done by a specialist. They must have their keys locked and legs removed at origin, then the piano gets turned on its side and “wrapped, strapped, and boarded”, on a long thin piano board. The boards alone can cost between $180-$500 depending where you buy them. Once the piano is locked and boarded, it can safely be strapped into the moving truck, and hopefully insulated again once inside to protect it from any sharp shifting during transit. You could go so far as crating these as well, which for the pianos that are worth more than a car, makes the most sense.
At destination, once unloaded, it will be unwrapped and unlocked and have the legs put back on. When done properly, there is rarely a need for it to be tuned at delivery, but it’s possible. Now imagine a moving company not doing any of that, and just wrapping a beautiful expensive Baby Grand piano like it was a standard living room end table, and the keys, strings, hammers and soundboard being left to bounce around on their own during a 1000 mile move…….sounds careless right? This happens more than you would imagine. The best case scenario when a piano is moved like this is the customer has to hire a tuner to come out, the worst case is they have an unusable piano in their family room.
Proper servicing at origin and destination for one of these pianos, plus the necessary equipment, can range from $1k-$3k depending on exactly how you approach it, and who sets it up for you (and how much money they know how to save you from experience).
Some companies would rather not explain the details and costs than scare the customer with the true prices and potentially blow a deal. Personally, I would suggest any moving company turn the business away if the client didn’t allow you to do it properly. Considering the costs to do it the right way, it may now make sense how many are offered cheap or free in the classifieds, and how many moving companies gloss over it like it’s no big deal when a client has one.
So if you are going to move a piano, do some research and do it right, or you may end up with nothing but a 600 pound out-of-tune piece of wood in your family room.