Tips on transportation of the piano

Many of us have a piano at home. Sooner or later, most owners of this musical instrument have a question: how to transport the piano in such a way as not to damage it. The fact is that a piano is a voluminous musical instrument, the weight of which is quite significant, and you need to transport it very carefully: without breaking or scratching it. In this article Redline Moving will describe in detail several methods for transporting different types of pianos, and provide useful tips for their transportation.

Spinet

The spinet is the smallest type of piano that was produced until the end of the last century. The spinet has a small height (around 1’2), but with its apparent diminutiveness, it has a weight of about 280 lbs, which does not facilitate the work of leaders at all. In order to transport a spinet, you should do the following steps:

• clearly plan the entire route, along the way checking whether the spinet passes through all the doors along the path of its carrying;
• if the spinet will be transported by truck, open all doors on the way of its transportation first, open the truck body and the entrance doors too;
• the optimal ratio of people to the weight of the cargo — 1 person per 45 kilograms of weight. Therefore, a minimum of 4 people will be required to transport the spinet;
• it is necessary to fix the spinet cover and the keyboard cover of the musical instrument with transport tape and wrap it in blankets (so as not to scratch the polish);
• you need to hire the required number of people (minimum — 4 people) and carefully transfer the spinet to the truck, making stops every 0,03 miles from the apartment to the truck.

The spinet is the lightest type among keyboard instruments. Its small dimensions (and relatively low weight) make transportation not so difficult.

Piano

The ordinary piano is one of the most common musical instruments of this type. The weight of the piano ranges from 400 to 1000 lbs, and the height reaches about 1’5. The center of gravity of the piano, unlike the larger instruments, is located at a height of 1’2. The transportation scheme for a regular piano is not very different from the transportation scheme for a spinet:

• Thoroughly plan the entire route and first open all doors in the apartment, house, open the truck body;
• persons who are involved in moving the piano must wear rubberized work gloves and special belts that can protect against stretching the back muscles when carrying a musical instrument;
• carefully tape the instrument cover and keyboard cover, wrap the instrument with blankets and load the piano on a special wide cart, if available.
• If the piano does not fit through the doorway on a cart, it must be moved and rotated without the cart, by hand. You need to be very careful and, having done any action, put the instrument on the floor and rest;
• the instrument should be lifted by the force of the legs, squatting under it with a straight back.

A regular piano is a little more difficult to transport than a spinet, but with the right approach, it will not create any special problems, during loading and transportation.