10 Things to Know Before Attempting to Move a Piano

You can’t simply just decide to move a piano. Moving a piano requires planning, organization, and few extra bodies. You will have to make changes or rearrangements in your home to get it out of your house. Chances are you won’t be able to do this by yourself either: you will need at least a couple extra pairs of helping hands.

If you have a piano you need to move; you have certainly found yourself in the right place. Below we will discuss exactly how to go about moving your piano.

1. Plan Accordingly

Look around your home and walk the path from piano to door over and over. Find any objects that are laying in the way such as tables, lamps, and other furniture.

Call up your strongest friends to help you move the piano. Modern pianos can weigh somewhere around 350 pounds, and older pianos usually weight somewhere around 500 pounds. You are going to need help, and you are going to need a lot of it.

2. Prepare Your Piano

You could cause a lot of damage to your piano if you don’t prepare it properly. If possible, use professional grade equipment like piano dollies and ratchet straps. You don’t want to use the wheels on a piano for long trips. These wheels can snap off because they are not meant to be used for long-term moving.

3. Ensure Proper Safety

This point ties in closely to the second, but there are additional things you should know about. If you are traveling through public spaces while moving, you need to ensure that other people are safe. This means you should make some effort to inform neighbors in your building that you will be moving a piano.

4. Transport

Once you have got your piano outside, you need a vehicle to move it. A pick-up truck may be fine for smaller pianos, but you may need to consider renting a moving truck. This is a costly, much-needed service.

5. It’s Basic Physics

There are several styles of piano, but most of them are top heavy. Damage to a piano can be mechanic as well as cosmetic. You don’t want to scratch the finish on your piano, but you also don’t want to tilt it or jerk it in strange ways.

6. Get to Moving

Now that you have planned out your methods, it is time to do the hard work. Get your friends together and move the piano out of your home and into the moving truck.

7. Secure the Piano

By making sure the piano isn’t mobile in the moving truck, you are ensuring that your piano doesn’t get damaged in the process. If your piano has locks on its wheels, lock them, but don’t rely on them. Use your ratchet straps to lock down the piano.

8. The New Home

You should follow the above steps where applicable. Move furniture out of the way, and make sure the people around you know that you are moving a heavy object.

9. Return your Leased or Borrowed Equipment

You’ll want to return your moving truck and any tools you borrowed. You don’t want to earn a negative reputation.

10. You Could Hire Movers

If you want to skip a lot of planning and hard work, you could hire a piano moving service. Look online or in your local newspapers to find someone to move your piano for you.