The process of buying or selling a piano has many common elements. One of the most essential concerns is moving the piano from one place to another. Many factors must be addressed to accurately determine how much it should cost to deliver a piano.
The very first determination is whether the instrument should be moved professionally or whether a consumer can handle the job. The purchase of smaller and lighter digital pianos often makes the cost close to zero. One or two people can easily handle the ability to load, move, and set up the instrument. There are, however, bigger digital grand pianos that the pros should move.
Moving Option for Acoustic Pianos
Things can change quickly when deciding on a moving option for acoustic pianos. While some home upright pianos can be moved quickly, there are concerns. Most acoustic pianos have 12,000 or more moving parts. Most of those parts are wood. String tension is measured in tons. Many cabinets are held together with dowels and glue.
Upright pianos can weigh between 200 and 600 pounds. The center of gravity is high, making them top-heavy. Cabinets are often smooth, with few handles except on the back. Upright pianos may have wheels, but they are usually not designed to be used to move long distances.
Grand pianos range from 650 to over 1200 lbs. Cabinets are often smooth with no handles. Grand piano legs are not designed for the vertical stresses of moving. Most grand pianos are tilted to the side, and the legs and leg bolts are removed before delivery.
How Pricing is Factored
Any instrument delivery is only as valuable as the experience of the movers, their tools, and the vehicle in which they are transporting the piano. A bargain delivery is not a bargain if the movers are novices, not equipped, or the moving vehicle is substandard. Even being bonded and insured is not a remedy for a lack of expertise.
The internet is whole of guesses on how much it should cost to deliver a piano. To get an accurate assessment, some details must be addressed. If the conversation of moving occurs and no one mentions the following conditions, an error may occur. Pricing involves:
Description
The type (digital, upright, or grand), size, and age of the piano are important for the movers to know to calculate the moving price.
Egress
The conditions where the piano is leaving, including steps, turns, floors, and exterior terrain, must be made known to the movers before they can quote a price to move your piano.
Mileage
Before quoting a moving cost, the movers need to know the pickup and delivery addresses of the piano. Knowing major roads, local streets, gates, and tolls is also helpful.
Ingress
The conditions where the piano arrives, including steps, turns, floors, and exterior terrain, also factor into how much it should cost to deliver a piano.
This may sound difficult, but we have one opportunity to get it right. In a piano’s 100-year lifetime, there may be only one or two moves. You can expect a competent mover to charge… more than you expect. Nowhere in the pricing is a designation of how expensive the piano might be. That is an insurer’s question, not a mover’s one.
Why These Details Are Important
Again, without detail, it is wrong to exact an amount that covers every move. Yet here is a specific example:
A 5’5″ baby grand leaving a store, with no steps, traveling 20 miles, mostly freeway, with two sides streets, to a home, with a paved walkway and four steps up, on the ground floor, with no sharp turns. Delivery might be assessed at $580-650.
One last thing: there is no free delivery. Internet mail order has made it seem that there is, but no, there is not. All delivery costs are either line items as extra costs or generically built into the price of a product. No one works in delivery for free, no free moving trucks, and fuel is never free.