Moving a piano in Sacramento

The short answer

A piano move is charged by the hour like any other job — 3 hours of work plus 1 hour of travel as the minimum, at $179 an hour for three movers or $219 for four — plus a flight charge that California allows only for pianos and organs, plus rigging if the instrument cannot go out the way it came in.

What we will not do is give you a figure before seeing the instrument and the route out. An upright down a straight staircase and a nine-foot grand out of a third-floor flat with a turn on the landing are different jobs, and any company quoting both from a phone call is guessing at your expense.

Why stairs cost nothing on a sofa and something on a piano

Item 140 of California’s Maximum Rate Tariff 4 sets the maximum flight and long-carry charge on an hourly-rated move at "No additional". That is why every other page on this site says stairs are billed as time: on an hourly job the clock is already running while the crew climbs, and charging separately would bill the same minutes twice.

Paragraph 2 of that same item is the exception. Pipe organs, grand pianos, harpsichords and any piano or organ that cannot be conveniently hand-carried by one person do carry a flight charge on top of the hours. The state’s maximums are $39.30 for the first flight inside a building and $19.71 for each additional floor; outside, $39.30 for the first flight and $0.90 per step.

A flight, in the tariff’s own definition, is a run of at least eight steps. A lift counts as one flight. Those are maximums — a mover may charge less and may not charge more.

When the piano will not fit in the lift

This is the case people call about, and the tariff has an item for it. Item 168 says a mover performing rigging, hoisting or lowering does so at the hourly rates in Item 320 — so it is billed as crew time, not as a mystery fee. If the job needs a specialist rigger instead, the mover arranges it as your agent and the rigger’s invoice is yours, in addition to the moving charges.

We will tell you plainly which of those two it is before you book, and if the honest answer is that this needs a rigging company rather than a moving company, we will say that rather than take the job and improvise.

What decides the crew, and therefore the hours

• —The instrument. A spinet is two movers. An upright is usually three. A baby grand or parlour grand is four, because it has to come off its legs and onto a board.
• —The path out: doorway widths, the turn on a landing, whether the stairs are straight or winding, and how far the truck can get from the door.
• —Whether the legs and lyre come off, which they do on any grand, and go back on at the other end.
• —The floor at both ends. Stone and hardwood need protection laid before anything moves.

What to send us so the quote is real

• —A photograph of the instrument, including the legs.
• —The make and model if you can see it, usually inside the lid.
• —A photograph of the route out: the doorway, the stairs, the landing, the lift if there is one.
• —Which floor, at both addresses, and whether the truck can reach the door.

Safes, gym equipment and everything else heavy

A gun safe, a treadmill, a slate pool table or a workshop machine is the same shape of problem: a single item that decides the crew size and sometimes needs rigging. The difference is that the tariff’s flight charge applies to pianos and organs only, so for everything else the stairs are hours, as they are on an ordinary move.