My experience w local piano movers
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So sorry to hear about what sounds like a harrowing experience. Hopefully the piano is fine.
I think I would get in touch with the moving company and talk to someone higher up. It's pretty silly that they couldn't even get the rug positioned correctly without wrinkles. Describe the multiple problems the crew had, including the thud. And how your piano has been moved multiple times without incident with a two person crew.
Maybe the crew you got was not particularly experienced, and if that's the case, the moving company might appreciate knowing that and they won't send these guys out for another piano move.
If nothing else, maybe you can keep this from happening to someone else.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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@wtg said in My experience w local piano movers:
So sorry to hear about what sounds like a harrowing experience. Hopefully the piano is fine.
Thank you. I think the piano is fine, but of course I could be missing something.
I think I would get in touch with the moving company and talk to someone higher up.
So I just looked at the web page again, and I had it backwards of who I thought was the owner and who was just a manager. Ok, I'm going to talk to the owner actually, because I found him easier to talk to than the other guy.
@wtg said in My experience w local piano movers:
Maybe the crew you got was not particularly experienced, and if that's the case, the moving company might appreciate knowing that and they won't send these guys out for another piano move.
If nothing else, maybe you can keep this from happening to someone else.
Yep, this will be my goal in talking to them.
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Hoo boy... No ramp? Yikes.
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@Rontuner said in My experience w local piano movers:
Hoo boy... No ramp? Yikes.
Yep. It seems like such a basic thing. And it would have made such a difference.
-_-So Ron, how worried do you think I should be about them setting my piano down with such a loud thud?
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was it on a skidboard and wrapped in blankets? probably ok
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@Rontuner said in My experience w local piano movers:
was it on a skidboard and wrapped in blankets?
Yes!
Your "probably ok" makes me feel a lot better!!
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Skidboards are heavily padded on the piano side, any loud thunk would likely be the bottom/wood part hitting the ground.
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ok that makes me feel a lot better!!!
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I watched them put it on the skidboard (which I recoginzed immediately because I've seen them before) and wrap it and all that.
If they would have just had a ramp, it would have been much better. But then again, there was the mess with the carpet...
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We never had a ramp to move grands, and I've moved a whole lot of them. You just take it up on the skidboard a step at a time and break it over when you're far enough up. Once you get up on the level you can reinsert the dolly. I'd much rather move a grand than an upright.
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”
― Douglas Adams -
I'll let Mary Anna recount the story of moving her grand.
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@Quirt-Evans said in My experience w local piano movers:
I'll let Mary Anna recount the story of moving her grand.
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It’s been SIX YEARS since they moved my piano to Reno. And it still makes mistakes almost every time I play it. There should be somebody I could sue..
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@DougG
You are not hitting it hard enough. Pianos need discipline.
Another problem is that some like discipline. -
When you are feeling cooler, call the owner. Those guys are in the wrong line of work.
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@Mik Thanks for this Mik! I don't want to say the wrong thing when I contact the moving company.
But for the record, the problem these guys had wasn't going up, it was going down, when they were bringing the piano out of the rental.
Based on your comment, maybe not every job needs a ramp, but this one would have gone better if they'd had one.
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@Quirt-Evans said in My experience w local piano movers:
I'll let Mary Anna recount the story of moving her grand.
Oh dear....
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My piano is currently on a moving van headed here. We are using a large international line that contracts with piano movers on either end to load and unload. I thought it would be fine.
And it probably is fine, but the process has been nightmarish. At Quirt's urging, I wrote our move coordinator the night before to make sure they were sending the third-party movers to take care of the piano and two large pieces of exercise equipment. I thought, "They're professionals. The third-party people are line items on the contract. Should I have to tell adults to do their jobs?" Well, the answer to that question is often yes, so I did as Quirt suggested. She said, "Yeah, sure, fine, they'll call you to arrange things."
I didn't get a call that night, but I got a call early on the day of the move. I said, "You're coming to load the piano and exercise equipment?" She said yes.
The movers arrived, but the third-party people didn't. At some point, I asked the one woman on the crew if she was the woman I'd talked to. She said, "Yes." So I hadn't spoken with the third-party mover. I called the moving coordinator. Much fussing around ensued with several calls from me. The upshot was that everybody blamed everybody else, but what probably happened is that the guy who quoted the job told the regular movers the correct date, but mistakenly put 7 instead of 6 down for the month on the order for the third-party crew, so they weren't planning to come for 30 more days. Much more fussing around ensued while they figured out whether they could do the job. About lunchtime, they showed up...without a piano board.
I was told not to worry. A regular four-wheeled dolly would be fine. They did seem to know how to do the other stuff--taking off the lid and legs and wrapping it in blankets and such. I called the moving coordinator. She said, "He knows what he's doing." So I watched them wheel my 900-pound beast of a piano out the front door and down a small step and onto the lift, steadying the thing as the lift went up. Then there was a lot of conversation about where to put it in the truck. The man in charge said he'd only ever moved one piano that large, and that they shouldn't lean it against the wall, because if the truck moved in a way that shifted it from vertical, the truck would actually sway and the driver would feel it. (Egad.) He told them where to put it on the truck and what to pack next to it to help keep it upright.
I called and emailed the coordinator and told her, "The third-party movers have got to have a piano board on the other or they will never get it up the eight steps to the front door without it falling over." She said she'd pass that along.
Consider me terrified. But we paid for insuring the load, so they have a lot of incentive to get this right.
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Oh MA, that sounds awful! I’m so sorry you had all that trouble but at least they got it loaded.
Is the piano on the truck with all your other belongings?
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This will be my first post on the new WTF forum. I’ve never owned a grand piano. After reading your post Shiro Kuro, the following came to mind:
If it was a local move, did the piano mover come out to your house BEFORE the actual move to scope out beforehand what’s involved between unloading the piano out of the truck and moving it into your house?
Regarding the movers not using a ramp. Maybe they had a ramp but couldn’t use it. Ask them why. Does your house have a porch with curving stairs or is the staircase longer than the length of a mover’s ramp?
Concerning the thud sound when the piano was on the sled: It appears that piano moving sleds need to have springs mounted on each wheel to act as shock absorbers. Yeah, I know they don’t make them like that but maybe they should.
