Moving a piano

[ARW]

Any tips? This is from one town to another town about a 150 miles away.

How to get it on the van, secure it down etc.

And how do you get it through a front door?

Thanks

[alan_m]

[Andy Burns]

[Robin]

I'm a pessimist so I'd start with prior questions:

- will I get sued if I break it?

- will I you lose, ahem, "benefits" if I break it?

- do I have a good excuse to get out of it?

If you're set on the job, the only important lesson I learnt from personal experience as a helper many years ago was that the legs can come off in a somewhat destructive failure mode if you push it. (I couldn't find a suitable funny video of that - just a boring lecture from professionals on that and other things not to do

)

[Steve Walker]

Is it wooden or cast-iron framed? If the latter you need as many people as you can get around it!

Getting the piano from my grandparents' house to my parents involved four of us and would have been easier if we could have fitted six around it.

Movements to get it out of the front room and to the front door involved standing it one one end to rotate it out of the front room door, but that had to be the wrong end for a later move, so it then had to be moved into the back room and switched onto its other end to be able to manoeuvre it back into the hall and out of the front door.

Once at the van, it was a case of lifting one end just in, then lifting the other end and pushing it the rest of the way.

Securing it was not a problem - the van had shelves running along both sides and we had to remove the front lip from one to get the piano between them. All it needed was strapping to stop it moving backwards or forwards, as there was nowhere else for it to go really. You do want it wellheld though, there'd be a lot of momentum if you had to emergency brake or, even worse, were in a crash. In our case, we were only moving it about 5 miles and all on slow roads, so a little less of a risk.

At the other end of the journey, it was decided that rather than manouvering it (on end) through the porch door and front door and then needing to be on the other end to turn through the living room door, it was easier to get it all the way to the back and come in through the patio door.

You can pretty well guarantee that it has very small metal castors, that tend to be siezed and anyway are so small that they sink into any carpet and will not roll or will dig grooves in laminate, so you need an old blanket or similar to slide it on, even when upright.

This all plays havoc with the tuning, so once in place, that'll need doing - we actually had the sterotypical blind piano tuner in!

All in all, its damned hard work and they are *HEAVY*!

SteveW

[misterroy]

I bought a piano on Thursday. It was going to be £120 for a professional piano tuner to move it, he did not need help. I would have liked to have seen it.

Two of us moved it using borrowed car wheel dollys.

dollys were great, we could adjust the direction of travel mid doorway. Only left one slight mark on the emulsion as we lifted it on. Steps involved, but no stairs.

[alan_m]

Perhaps something like this would help if upending the piano

In the past I've found them to be very useful for heavy loads. for the front/back door thresholds build a platform from scrap lengths of wood and slide the piano on these using a blanket to protect and provide a low friction surface.

[nothanks]

You need a trolley with a single axle so that it can be turned and tilted easily. Use timber ramps or muscles to get over door thresholds.

In the van, get it against the front bulkhead and rope it to the side of the van (or use props from the other side onto a carpeted board to spread any load). Obviously, remove any removable bits before you start.

Some mates and I once tried to get a piano up some stairs, but we had to give-up about a third of the way up. When the "professionals" turned-up (2 HUGE blokes) they just carried it up as if it was an empty box. Despite being an enthusiastic and can-do DIYer I would pay someone else to damage their back if I had one to move.

[charles]

Some years ago I saw a farmer pick up a piano all by himelf.

[Dave W]

There are (or were) professional piano movers. I'm sure you could afford their services.

[ARW]

It's a three job in two days type of thing. I will not get sued if it goes t*ts up.

1. I go to Watford to do some work.
2. The next day I drive from Watford to Shrewsbury to pick up a piano with the bloke from Watford from his Mum's old house to bring back to Watford
3. Whilst in Shrewsbury and picking up the piano I do a EICR of her new house in Shrewsbury.

And yes Geoff from CET is renting the van so I cannot get out of it:-)

[ARW]

So basically it's going to be a bastard of a job then?

I like a challenge.

[misterroy]

The professional was going to charge me £120 to move it 30 miles, and he was making the journey anyway to tune it at mine.

I'm 53 and lift nothing heavier than a pen at work, I managed my end of the piano.

[alan_m]

If it were their only load they would probably want £1 per mile to start with (£300) plus the hourly rate for 2 men for at least 6 hours (£120 minimum) plus VAT (£85) = £505.

[Robin]

Ordinary looking uprights with an iron frame can top 200 kg. And AIUI even movers can't always tell just by looking.

[Andrew]

But it probably didn't have a cast-iron frame though.

[Robin]

Sheesh! So Day 2 is summat like:

drive to Shrewsbury (140-odd miles) do EICR load piano drive Watford (140-odd miles) unload piano [drive Doncaster (150-odd miles)]

Extra bodies available at both ends? Enough extra bodies and you could leave Geoff to load while you do the EICR and unload while you... :)

[ARW]

That's about it.

Plenty of bodies at the Watford end.

[Robin]

Find out if it's got an iron frame or where to find cheap bodies in Shrewsbury. Especially if there are steps involved or the van won't have a tail lift. (There's "a challenge" and there's "on the plus side, the toecaps on his boots survived".)

[ARW]

Geoff is recruiting for the Shrewsbury side.