Specialty & heavy items
The Things a Regular Crew Will Not Touch.
Pianos, gun safes, hot tubs and pool tables. Proper dollies, boards, straps and skids — and a crew sized for the weight rather than for the invoice.
Quicker by phone. What it is, what floor it is on, and where it is going.
Why these are quoted separately
Weight is only half the problem
An upright piano is around 400 to 800 lb and a grand can be well past a thousand. A gun safe is frequently heavier than both. But weight on its own is manageable — what makes these jobs specialist is that the weight is concentrated, unbalanced, and usually has to change direction on a staircase.
A grand piano comes off its legs and travels on its side on a padded skid board. A safe goes down stairs on a stair-climbing dolly with the load controlled from below, never carried. A hot tub has to be drained and disconnected first, and then it is a large flat sail that two people cannot steer in wind. None of that is improvised on the day.
It is also why we will not be the cheapest quote you get for a piano. A crew of two with a furniture dolly is cheaper. It is also how floors get gouged, staircases get cracked, and soundboards get written off — and those are not repairs, they are replacements.
What we move
Specialty jobs we do routinely
Piano Moving
Uprights, baby grands, and grands moved on proper equipment, not a hand truck.
Gun Safe & Safe Moving
A 1,000 lb safe down a staircase without cracking a step or a floor.
Hot Tub & Pool Table Moving
Drained, disconnected, craned or carried, and set level at the other end.
A real job, start to finish
How a grand piano actually moves
These are photographs from one of our own piano jobs, not stock images of somebody else’s.
What we need to know
Four questions that decide the quote
Have these ready and we can usually price it on the phone.
- What exactly is it? Upright, baby grand or grand. Safe height and rough weight. Hot tub seat count.
- What floor is it on, at both ends? Stairs change the crew size more than distance does.
- What is the route out? Door widths, turns at the bottom of a staircase, whether a rail comes off, gate access.
- Is anything disconnected already? Hot tubs need draining and electrical disconnection before we arrive.
What we will tell you honestly
Sometimes the answer is a crane, or no
Hot tubs in Southern Utah are frequently in a walled back garden with no side gate wide enough to get them out. That means a crane lift over the house, which is a different job with a different contractor and a different price — and we would rather tell you that on the phone than discover it with four people standing in your garden.
Occasionally a piano genuinely cannot come out of a room the way it went in, because a wall was built afterwards or a staircase was replaced. That is rare, and we will say so before you have paid anyone anything.
Specialty moving questions
Do you move a piano as part of a house move or separately?
Either. If it is part of a full move it is priced as an addition to that job, because the crew and truck are already there. On its own it is a standalone job. Say which when you call — it changes the number.
Will my piano need tuning afterwards?
Almost certainly, and that is normal rather than a sign something went wrong. Pianos go out of tune with the change in humidity and temperature at the new address as much as with the journey. Let it settle for a couple of weeks in the new room before you book a tuner.
Can you get a gun safe into a basement?
Usually, with a stair-climbing dolly and enough crew. What decides it is the staircase — width, turns and what the treads are made of. Send a photo of the stairs and the safe with the door closed and we can tell you quickly.
Do you drain the hot tub?
It needs to be drained and electrically disconnected before we arrive, and the disconnection should be done by an electrician. We can advise on the timing so it is not sitting drained for a week.
Why is this more expensive than a normal move?
Because it needs equipment a regular crew does not carry and more people than the weight alone suggests. We are not the cheapest way to move a piano and we do not try to be — the cheap way is how floors and instruments get damaged.
What is it, and where is it going?
Specialty jobs are quicker to price on the phone than in a form. Tell us the item, the floor it is on and the route out.