TRUCKING A PIANO

Dollying the piano to and lifting or carrying it over steps is repeated as many times as necessary until finally the piano can be dollied up the ramp or be lift gate loaded onto the truck. Then, once on the truck, the upright piano has to be taken off of the dolly and placed on its feet, keyboard side facing into the wall of the truck. A grand piano is taken off of its dolly and placed on its piano skidboard with the top side of the piano facing the truck's wall. Never truck a piano on the dolly because it might break loose and roll around in the truck while it's being driven causing terrible damage.

You place the piano with it's keyboard side (padded) facing the wall of the truck so that it if it gets accidentally scraped it only happens to the piano's backside which does no effective damage to the piano's finish. Its front keyboard side is protected from truck wall scraping damage by its pad. You place a grand piano with its padded top facing the wall for the same reason.

The piano needs to be securely double or triple belted to the truck wall and then it can be trucked. Drive it to a position on the street or in a parking lot as close to the destination point as possible. Remember - always first use the truck as much as possible for transport and then use the dolly for what's left of the move path, right to the set down point in the new residence, only cheating or carrying the piano when necessary.

CONSERVING HUMAN ENERGY DURING PIANO MOVING

In the picture below the ramp would not reach all the way up to the top of the porch so the movers had to place it one step down from the top and then use a little cheat to get the piano up and over the top step on the dolly. This is an excellent example of conserving human energy because lesser trained piano movers would have given up on using the ramp because it was too short and instead carried this piano up all of the stairs to the porch. These guys did it the easier way up on the dolly using the ramp and a little cheat.

Again let us reiterate, you always want to try to use as little human strength during a piano move as possible as they are doing here. The secret to do it yourself piano moving (or any kind of self moving for that matter) is to have plenty of people on each segment of the move so that you don't get overloaded or rushed to get the job done. You also need to have the right equipment to do the job as easily as possible. Everyone should use the piano moving equipment and good piano moving technique and should be constantly thinking of easier ways to accomplish each moving task with the minimum amount of human exertion. Always try to only make exertions when absolutely necessary because, besides exhausting people of their strength, any exertion, especially strong exertions, can lead to an unwanted injury like a hernia or a back problem. Strong exertions can also lead to damages to the piano!

Once you arrive at the destination and are safely parked, the upright piano is unbelted from the truck wall and remounted on the dolly, again on its feet or on its side depending on the aforementioned 4 consecutive low steps rule. Next, it is dollied and cheated and / or carried (as circumstances dictate) over stairs to its destination point. Then it is dismounted from the dolly, being careful not to nick or chip the piano's bottom edge or the floor, and it is set in place (sometimes into cups for the casters so as not to gouge the floor in the future). Grand pianos of course, need to be fully reassembled before they are set in place. The piano move is now completed!

Sounds pretty simple doesn't it? It can actually occur that way for you and your crew if all of you carefully study all of our instructions and take your time and use our techniques and our piano moving equipment correctly and think! Think! Think! Also again let us remind you, before you proceed please be sure to review our sections on piano moving warnings and piano moving equipment costs.