Handle a piano the way a crew handles a dresser and someone gets hurt while the instrument loses its voice for good. The trouble is the weight and where it hides: a spinet sits at 300 to 500 pounds, a grand between 600 and 1,200, a concert grand nearing 1,400, and it all bears down right on the parts a wrong hold will crack. Pianos are the entire trade at Mt Auburn Piano Movers. Paul Marchetti, who grew up in Watertown and tuned instruments before he ran a company, founded it in 2009 and put his crews through nothing but piano work, so the gear that shows up, piano boards, skid boards, and grand carriages, replaces muscle with leverage and proper rigging. Pricing is one flat number for each instrument: a spinet or upright at $220 to $400, a console or studio upright at $280 to $480, a baby grand at $420 to $720, a full grand at $580 to $980, and a concert grand at $850 to $1,500, every figure quoted before anyone bends to lift.
No grand crosses a doorway whole. Resting on its long edge against a cushioned skid board, it gives up its lyre and pedal mechanism first, and its three legs come away one by one while the crew bears the load, each piece padded and riding alongside the body. Wrapping and shrink film cover the case, straps bind it to the board, and the soundboard and pin block ride out the trip without a jolt. An upright travels standing on its board, coaxed across each sill by hands that read where 400 pounds wants to lurch. Because the soundboard, the legs, the lyre, and the pedals cost the most and break the easiest, the path gets walked and measured ahead of any contact, runners go down over the flooring, and the door casings get padded.
Every kind of piano, plus the heavy specialty pieces
In a Greater Boston home, the grand is often not the only weight in the room. The same household might keep a parlor pipe organ, a player piano, an old square piano, or a harpsichord, and all of those ride the identical boards and dollies behind the identical trained hands. A 700-pound loaded gun safe, a slate billiard table, or an oversized antique calls for rigging on a par with a concert grand. Every route gets masked at its corners and casings, and the crew shows up only as many strong as the load demands, which on a grand bound up a flight runs four or more.
What our piano crew moves
- Spinets, uprights, consoles, and studio uprights
- Baby grands, full grands, and concert grands, partly disassembled and skidded for the road
- Pipe and reed organs, player pianos, square and antique pianos, and harpsichords
- Gun safes, billiard and pool tables, and oversized antiques, in residences and venues both
Just repositioning it within the home or clearing it for a floor refinish? Turn to in-home piano moving. Shipping it beyond Massachusetts? We run it on our own licensing, laid out on the long-distance piano transport page. Get a free quote and we will respond within one business hour.
What’s Included
- A crew put through piano work alone, never a general furniture team borrowed for the afternoon
- Piano boards, skid boards, and grand carriages, on dollies whose rating sits well over each load
- A grand laid on its long edge, the pedals and lyre detached, legs off one by one, each piece padded
- Heavy quilting and binding straps that pin the case so the soundboard and pin block ride jolt-free
- One flat number per instrument quoted upfront, from a $220-$400 upright to an $850-$1,500 concert grand
- Pipe organs, player pianos, square and antique pianos, harpsichords, gun safes, and billiard tables
- The whole path masked at corners and casings and measured before a hand touches the instrument
- Up to $1M in cargo coverage covering each piano and each oversized specialty piece
What Does It Cost?
Per-piano flat pricing — uprights from $220, grands by the room
Two trained piano movers, the truck, the piano boards, and all the pads and dollies are part of the price.
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