Uprights and grands are two different moving jobs wearing the same word. An upright rides vertically, strapped to a padded piano board and dolly, and a local move typically costs in the one-hundred-fifty to four-hundred dollar range. A grand comes partially apart (legs, pedal lyre, and music desk off), rides on its side on a skid board, and typically costs three hundred to eight hundred dollars or more locally, with stairs pushing either job upward fast. Those are typical published planning ranges, not quotes for your piano or your staircase. Here is how the two moves actually work, what the instruments weigh, and why the staircase, not the piano, usually decides the price.
How much does a piano weigh?
Typical published ranges by type:
- Spinet and console uprights: roughly 200 to 400 pounds.
- Studio and full-size uprights: roughly 400 to 800 pounds, and big old full-size uprights from the early twentieth century sit at the heavy end of that band with cast-iron plates that dominate the weight.
- Baby grands: roughly 500 to 650 pounds.
- Larger grands: roughly 700 to 1,200 pounds as you move from living-room grands toward concert instruments.
Manufacturers publish specifications per model, so when you know the make and model, look up the real figure. Weight alone, though, understates the problem. Pianos are weight in an awkward costume: top-heavy uprights with thin legs that must never carry the load, and grands whose elegant case hides the fact that most of the mass is a cast-iron plate. The moving trade solved this with two specific rigs, one per body type.
How do pros move an upright piano?
An upright stays upright. The crew wraps the instrument in moving blankets, closes and secures the lid and fallboard, then straps the piano to a piano board (a padded, reinforced plank with strap slots, also called a skid board) or directly onto a heavy four-wheel piano dolly. From there the piano rolls, with the crew steering and braking, over floor protection rather than bare flooring, because several hundred pounds on small wheels will mark wood and crack tile. The cardinal rule of upright moving: the load never rides on the piano's own casters or legs. Those little wheels are furniture jewelry, fine for an inch of adjustment, catastrophic for a real move. Doorways get measured in advance, thresholds get ramped, and on stairs the board becomes a controlled sled with the crew above and below, or the job escalates to a powered stair-climbing dolly for the heavy classes, the same machine logic we cover in our gun safe moving guide.
How do pros move a grand piano?
A grand cannot travel on its legs; they are furniture, not structure, under a moving load. The standard method:
- Close and secure the lid, then remove the music desk and, per the crew's judgment, the lid itself on some jobs.
- Remove the pedal lyre, the pedal assembly hanging beneath the keybed.
- Tip onto the straight side. With one leg off, the piano is eased down onto a padded skid board along its straight (bass) side, where the rim is strongest.
- Remove the remaining legs, wrap everything, and strap the body to the board.
- Roll it out on a dolly, navigating doorways with the piano vertical on its side, which is exactly how a six-foot-wide instrument fits through a thirty-six-inch door.
- Reassemble at the destination, legs and lyre back on, in reverse order.
Disassembly is why grand moves cost more than upright moves even on flat ground: there is simply more skilled labor on both ends. It is also why the cheap quote is the expensive one when it comes from a crew that plans to muscle a grand on its legs. Ask any grand mover to describe their process; the words skid board and lyre should appear unprompted.
Why are stairs the deciding factor?
Because stairs convert a rolling job into a lifting job, and pianos punish lifting. Most piano movers price stairs explicitly, commonly as a per-flight or per-step charge on top of the base rate, and a basement or second-floor location can add a meaningful fraction of the whole price. The reasons are physical, not commercial: on stairs the crew is controlling hundreds of pounds on a slope where the piano wants to go down faster than anyone wants it to, landings force pivots where clearance disappears, and the instrument's finish is one wall-scrape from a refinishing bill. This is the access-beats-weight rule at full strength: the same console piano is an easy first-floor move and a genuinely hard basement extraction. When you request a quote, count the steps, note the landings, and say so up front; accurate access detail is the difference between a real number and a guess, which is exactly how our quote form is built.
Does a piano need tuning after a move?
Almost always, yes, and not primarily because of the handling. Pianos hold roughly twenty tons of combined string tension against a cast-iron plate and a wooden soundboard, and that wooden structure responds to the humidity and temperature of the room it lives in. Move the piano to a new room and the soundboard begins adjusting to the new environment, which shifts pitch over the following weeks. The practical advice piano technicians give: let the instrument acclimate in its new home for a few weeks before tuning, so the tuner is working on a stabilized instrument rather than one still moving. The Piano Technicians Guild, the professional body for registered piano technicians, publishes care guidance and a technician directory at ptg.org. Budget the tuning as part of the move's true cost; it is a feature of physics, not a defect in the moving.
Should you ever move a piano yourself?
A spinet across a flat room onto a proper dolly, with furniture-moving experience and floor protection, is defensible. Almost everything past that is a poor bet: full-size uprights, any grand, and any staircase. The instrument is unforgiving (a dropped corner can crack a soundboard or snap a leg at the block), the house is unforgiving (stair treads, railings, and drywall all lose), and the injury profile is exactly what you would expect from top-heavy loads on slopes. Professional piano movers carry the boards, dollies, straps, pads, and crew rhythm that make this routine, plus insurance for the day it is not. For moves crossing state lines, the carrier should be federally registered, which you can verify in the FMCSA's public database at safer.fmcsa.dot.gov; the FMCSA's consumer guide at fmcsa.dot.gov/protect-your-move explains what registered interstate movers owe you. In-state, mover regulation varies by state, so ask what the company carries and confirm insurance either way.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to move a piano upstairs or to a basement?
Expect the stair work to be priced explicitly on top of the base move, commonly per flight, and for heavy uprights and grands expect the crew size to grow. Typical local totals for stair-heavy jobs land meaningfully above the flat-ground ranges: planning numbers, not quotes, with your exact staircase deciding the real figure.
Can regular movers handle a piano?
Many household movers will take a spinet or console on a flat route, and good ones do it properly with a board and dolly. Grands, heavy uprights, and stair jobs belong with piano specialists who own the right boards and do the disassembly weekly. Ask what equipment and process they will use; the answer tells you which kind of mover you have.
How soon after moving should a piano be tuned?
The common professional advice is to wait a few weeks after the piano settles into its new room, so the soundboard finishes reacting to the new humidity before the tuner arrives. If the piano will live somewhere with big seasonal swings, a technician can also talk you through humidity control options for the instrument.