How to Move a Piano
If you’re thinking about moving a piano yourself the first advice I would give you: don’t. Pianos are very, very heavy and can inflict significant personal injury as well as significant damage to your home or to the piano itself. People don’t realize quite how heavy a piano is. Piano movers are a necessity! The average console or spinet weighs somewhere between two or three hundred to five hundred pounds; more importantly, a full-size upright piano can vary in weight from seven hundred pounds up to a whopping thousand pounds. However, once you get into specialty pianos, the weight becomes almost silly – a grand piano can range anything from a thousand pounds upwards and a concert grand can be as much as thirteen hundred pounds. None of which you really want to be moving yourself!
However, the weight isn’t the worst of it. Pianos are particularly cumbersome in terms of balance, weight distribution and inertia and without knowledge of how to cope with these factors they are extremely difficult to know how to lift. Brains will always trump brawn when moving a piano. Instead of concentrating on weight the most experienced movers will use the proper positioning and stance to adjust themselves for the asymmetric shape, the moving inner mechanics and the uneven distribution of parts and loads. However, all these factors are why most pianos require specialist movers, with specialist equipment, to handle the move.
That said, what about if you want to move a piano around a room, or from room to room? This is a little easier and can be managed by a bunch of friends who prepare well first. Initially you need to make sure the piano to be moved is accessible from every angle and that the location it is to be moved is clear and suitable (not near heating devices or drafts or on an uneven surface.) You need to lower and lock the lid and then place one person at each end of the piano. The piano will be being moved endways rather than sideways so face it in the right direction. Remove any obstacles en route and make sure the floor or carpet is flat. Once you start moving it, make sure you don’t bend your back to take the strain; instead use your knees and keep your back straight. Once you start, don’t put too much strain on the legs of the piano and lift it, a few inches at a time with at least three people lifting around the piano every time you lift it. Once it is lifted, take just enough load off the piano castors so that it will roll easily but is not completely off the ground, except when the castors need to go over bumps.
Moving around the room and from room to room is one thing and is just about manageable by a healthy and fit bunch of people. But on no account should you try to move a piano yourself from one house to another. Even if you ignore the issues of weight and balance and difficulty, the cost of the piano alone and the risk of damage should be enough reason to get good insurance and hand it over to professionals to deal with!
