Walk-Up & Staircase Piano Moving | Mt Auburn Piano Movers

The hardest piano moves in Greater Boston are not the long ones; they are the ones with no elevator and a staircase that fights you the whole way up. A Somerville triple-decker stacks three units with a steep, narrow straight run between floors. A Beacon Hill brownstone winds its stairs in a switchback so tight the landing barely clears a console. A Back Bay walk-up turns twice before the second floor. Threading a piano through that kind of access is the work Paul built the company around, and the crew that shows up has carried instruments up these exact stairwells more times than they can count.

A walk-up move starts with the stairs, not the room. The crew lead measures the run, the landings, and the turn radius against the case before move day, decides whether the legs and lyre come off to gain the inches a switchback demands, and sets the number of hands the climb needs, four or more on a grand going up a triple-decker. The piano rides a board the whole way, eased step by step rather than muscled, with the soundboard side guarded against the wall and the finish quilted. The newel post and the casings get padded so the building takes no marks, and the route from the curb to the unit door is plotted before anyone lifts.

Some upper-floor units simply have no stair path a piano can take, and that is when a crane comes in. A baby grand bound for a third-floor Back Bay flat or an upper unit off Commonwealth Avenue sometimes has to go up and through a window, rigged onto a board and lifted clear of the building. That lift runs $650 to $1,800 depending on the height and the rigging, stated before the date. Where the stairs do work, a walk-up carry is priced per piano with the stair surcharge of about $40 to $75 a flight, more per step for a grand, added to the flat figure for the instrument.

On walk-up and staircase piano jobs, we handle

• Steep, straight triple-decker runs in Somerville, Cambridge, and Dorchester, no elevator in the building
• Switchback and winding brownstone stairs in Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and the South End
• Legs, lyre, and pedals off a grand to gain the inches a tight landing demands
• A crane lift through a window when an upper floor has no stair path a piano can clear

Just shifting the piano inside the same home rather than between buildings? See in-home piano moving. Shipping it out or storing it long-term once it is down the stairs? Our piano crating and packing builds it a proper crate. Get a free quote and we will respond within one business hour.

What’s Included

• The stair run, landings, and turn radius measured against the case before move day
• Legs, lyre, and pedals off a grand to gain the inches a switchback or tight landing demands
• A piano board under the instrument the whole climb, eased step by step rather than muscled
• Enough hands set for the run, four or more on a grand going up a triple-decker
• The newel post, casings, and walls padded so the building takes no marks
• The route plotted from the curb to the unit door before anyone lifts
• A crane lift through a window, $650-$1,800, when an upper floor has no stair path
• The stair surcharge of about $40-$75 a flight named upfront, atop the flat per-piano figure