Specialty & heavy items
The Things You Should Not Move With Friends
Pianos, gun safes, hot tubs and pool tables. Items where the right equipment and the right number of people is not a preference — it is the difference between a move and an injury.
Quoted on the item and the access, not by the hour.
Why these get their own page
Weight is only half the problem
An upright piano, a full-size gun safe and a hot tub have something in common beyond being heavy: the weight is concentrated, awkwardly distributed, and unforgiving of a single bad step.
A sofa that gets away from you is embarrassing. A safe that gets away from you on a staircase is a hospital visit and a rebuilt wall. The equipment exists for a reason — piano boards and skids, stair-climbing dollies, proper strapping — and so does the crew size.
The other half of the problem is the building. Doorway widths, turn radius at the top of a stairwell, whether a deck will take the load, and whether the item ever actually came in through the door it is supposed to go out of. That is what a survey is for.
What we move
Four items, four different jobs
Pianos
Uprights, baby grands and grands. Grands come apart — legs and lyre off, onto a piano board on its side. Uprights stay upright. Either way it is a boarded, strapped, planned job, and stairs change it completely. Tuning afterwards is expected; a piano that has moved will need it.
Gun safes
The single most dangerous common household item to move, because the weight is high and narrow and the centre of gravity is nowhere near where it looks. Stairs and basements need discussing before the day, not on it.
Hot tubs
Bulky rather than dense, and the constraints are access and route: gates, fences, decks, steps and whether the crane truck can reach. It must be fully drained beforehand — water is far heavier than the tub.
Also
Pool tables
A slate pool table does not move as a table. It comes apart — rails, pockets, felt, then the slate in sections, each of which is a serious weight on its own — and it has to be reassembled and re-levelled at the other end or it is a very heavy piece of furniture that plays badly.
If yours needs re-felting, that is the moment to do it, since it is already apart.
Northern Utah specifics
Access questions that come up here
- Basements. Far more common on the Wasatch Front than in Southern Utah, and a safe or a piano going down a basement stair is the hardest version of the job. Worth a look in advance every time.
- Ice. A 600-pound safe on a dolly and a glazed driveway do not belong in the same sentence. In winter we grit the route, or we plan a different one.
- Mountain properties. Park City, Heber, Midway and Kamas bring steep approaches, long drives and sometimes a gate a full-size truck will not clear. All fine when known about, all a problem when discovered.
- Decks and stairs. A hot tub sitting on a raised deck has to come off it, and the route off is rarely the route it came on.
- Narrow turns. Newer builds around Daybreak, Herriman and Eagle Mountain often have a tight stairwell turn that decides whether an upright goes up at all.
What it costs
How specialty items are quoted
On the item and the access, not by the hour. A piano moved on the flat with a straight run to the door and a piano coming out of a basement with a turn in the stairs are different jobs with different crew sizes.
Local moves are billed hourly with a crew size agreed up front. Tell us what you're moving and we'll quote it.
For anything in this category, send photographs — the item, the doorway, the stairs and the approach from the street. That usually gets you a real number without a visit.
Specialty moving questions
Can you move a piano up or down stairs?
Usually, and it is entirely a question of the specific staircase — width, turns, headroom and landing space. Send photographs of the stairs and the piano and we will tell you honestly, including if the answer is no.
Will my piano need tuning afterwards?
Yes, expect to. Any piano that has been moved should be tuned once it has settled in the new room, and that is normal rather than a sign anything went wrong.
Do I need to empty my gun safe?
Yes. Firearms, ammunition and valuables come out and travel with you, not with us. It also makes the safe meaningfully lighter and safer to handle.
Does the hot tub need draining?
Completely, and in advance — including blowing out the lines in winter so nothing left inside can freeze. Water weighs far more than the tub does.
Can you move a specialty item on its own?
Yes. A single-item job is normal work and does not need to be attached to a full move.
What if it will not fit?
Then we tell you before the day rather than after two hours of trying. Occasionally the answer is a window, a crane or a door coming off its hinges — and occasionally it is that the item genuinely cannot go where you want it.
Send us photographs of the item and the route.
The item, the doorway, the stairs and the approach. That is usually enough for a real quote.