Hopefully this will help you decide:
A young couple asked the women’s father to help them move a piano from one place to another in her house. Her father got a couple of his friends to come along and they brought a dolly. While they were lifting the piano — a full-size vertical — it tipped back too far and got away from them. While it was falling, its upper corner dug down through the wall. The trench it made was deep enough to sever an electric conduit, which shorted and began to burn. The “movers” were unable to stop the fire, which also spread to the floor below, another person’s apartment. After the fire department was done, there was little left of the two apartments and the piano.
This is an extreme example of the damage that can be inflicted when moving a piano in do-it-yourself fashion. But even if you don’t burn down your house, there is a substantial risk of personal injury, not to mention damage to the piano, the walls, the banisters, hard wood floors, etc.. There are many stories like this one and if you are still considering moving a piano by yourself with your friends whom have no prior experience, my suggestion is don’t.
So, if I may start on your list for your knowledge, do they have all the proper insurance, insure the piano of course and insured if any damage to house and house hold fixtures and items? If you need to store do they have temperature-controlled facility which is so very important to storing a piano. How many yrs. Experience do they have, look for the very experienced. Are there employees with them long, not just getting labors from a labor pool, not to knock labor pools but we want experienced people for an expert job with your piano.
Now some more horror stories to show you the dangers of moving a piano without the proper experience:
Remember as you read, this man was a mover of home furnishings and whatnot, not an expertise piano mover.
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A removal man, in England, who let a $88,000 concert piano slip off the back of his lorry and plunge down a bank described the monumental gaffe as “the worst thing that’s ever happened to me”.
Brian Haigh made a humiliating public apology to the instrument’s owner and told how the experience left him lost for words.
The 9ft Bosendorfer was supposed to be delivered – in one piece – to the Two Moors Festival in Devon.”I couldn’t speak for five minutes,” said Brian, who is employed by G & R Removals in Chiswick, west London. “I was really disappointed. I haven’t got words for it. I’ve been doing this job a long, long time. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”I was just gutted, absolutely gob smacked. I couldn’t believe it had gone over. I couldn’t talk for five minutes.”
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Again, this man is probably professionally capable of moving everything and anything with expertise, however, maybe not a piano? Why, maybe because he’s not a piano mover?
Go to you tube and google with the words Piano Moving Fails and watch what can happen, not pretty.
I am not saying no one has ever moved a piano with the DIY ways and means, I am just suggesting that if you want to safely secure your piano and ease your mind use the professional piano mover, not just the moving company. Many professional moving companies will even hire a pro piano moving company to assist them when necessary. Piano movers do just that, move pianos, they don’t move couches and beds and boxes of stuff in the dozens, they move pianos and piano parts. They store pianos in facilities that are designed for just that, storing piano in the proper temperature and conditions.
Please consider all the avenues here and make the decision that provides you with your pianos safety and you with peace of mind.