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Oh my goodness, Old Square, that sounds terrifying!!


Yes indeed!

Has the world run out of 20-something guys who lift? I don’t understand why the guy is moving that upright alone. Three guys from my dealer moved a Yamaha DYUS5 into my house. They had a really cool dolley that went up pretty high and they knew what they were doing, and they had muscle if the thing started to go the wrong way.

He bought the piano from a private seller for $100, with agreement he would pay for the moving cost.

That doesn’t answer my question, lol. So, the buyer was too cheap to pay for a couple of guys? I think it’s dangerous for one guy to move a piano. The guy moving the piano looks too small for the job. There is a coach in my Olympic weightlifting gym who can squat over 500lbs, and the owner can squat over 350lbs. Those are the type of guys for the job.

Hi all, just update here. I eventually found piano movers willing to go seller's place with $400. It was a little far from the metropolitan area (48 miles highway driving). The moving date is set to eariler Feb. due to high demand (I guess they other moving service too). So I have some time to clean up the room and figure out the retrofit muffler kit.
Sorry, moving by myself is beyond me. Don't want to hurt myself and the piano. Not easy to find a good Baldwin 243 in my area even though it is cheap.
Thank you all for helping! Will keep update once I have something new.

Given the distance (and round trip), $400 is reasonable for professional movers. The Baldwin looks excellent - I know you will enjoy it !!! Best.

No one should ever apologize for not moving their piano by themselves. We all just went down the rabbit hole talking about it!

When I bought my grand and had it delivered, after about 1-2 months I realized I wanted it to be in a different spot, facing a different direction, in the same room.

It has wheels, sure I could have moved it myself (or with friends). But I decided it wasn't worth risking hurting one of us, hurting the piano, damaging the floor, ripping the carpet.... I paid the piano moving pros to come back out and reposition it. It was perfect, and so much better in the new spot. Best $300 ever spent!

Anyway, good for you HanchenXT, I hope you have lots of fun when your Baldwin gets delivered!

I agree about NOT trying to roll a grand on the little wheels. Unless you have the modern steam roller wheels, they’re just for decoration (IMO).

My piano sits in the family room, which is the only carpeted room on the first floor. The carpet has started to develop a little wrinkle across half the room. It should be stretched out, but that can’t effectively be done with the piano sitting on it. I could try the five-strong-friends method to move it off the carpet, but there are also a couple steps up to the non-carpeted area. And, TBH, I’m not comfortable with the idea of setting it on the tile anyway (quality/strength of modern building materials is always suspect, and I don’t want to crack any). All the routes to a wooden floor are not quite wide enough to move a grand through without tipping it on its side, and even five strong guys are not gonna want to lift and carry a piano up steps and across 30 feet of tile anyway!

All that to say, in order to stretch the carpet, I’ll need to hire movers to move it out of the room while the carpet guys stretch the carpet and then move it back.

But we’re not entertaining much during covid anyway, so for now the wrinkle remains.

Forgot to mention...

I agree that no one should ever feel bad for not moving a piano themselves.
Frankly, I’d usually discourage it.

Although I have moved many pianos by myself or with my wife, I too have a story of getting pinned under a 800 lb upright on a move that went bad. Rather than equipment failure it was a "judgement" failure (trying to just "git-er-done". In my younger days...

BTW, the choice of the Hartford fixed wheel dolly is essential to one-man moves. This guy in the video knows that. I bought one soon after the above disaster. Pretty pricey at the time but well worth it. (Roughly 30 years ago).

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

Is this the Hartford dolley?

https://www.newhaven-usa.com/machine-moving-equipment/piano-dolly-steel-with-5-fixed-wheels

It looks similar to the one my three guys used to move my Yamaha DYUS5.



I wouldn’t hire one guy to move a piano. It’s similar to how I won’t hire a single guy to climb a tree with a chainsaw and cut it down. I want to see insurance coverage and a bucket truck.

I don’t need to get sued by some guy who gets hurt. It’s not worth any monetary savings to me.

New Haven dolly...YES! I knew it was Connecticut just couldn't remember the city!

Edit: They have everything related to piano moving.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

The guys who moved my Baldwin R in last Spring also moved the M to the basement. The backdoor only has about five steps, so they went outside and through the yard with it. For the grass they had a similar dolly, but it had even bigger golf cart style wheels for rolling over the lawn.

New Haven has the all terrain dolley:

https://www.newhaven-usa.com/machine-moving-equipment/all-terrain-dolly-with-6-10-pneumatic-wheels

My guys went through a little patch of grass near the front door, they didn’t go cross country. I’m sure the all terrain is indispensable for rolling across lawns.

There must be more than one design around. The guys who brought my large upright down the grassy bumpy hill we call a lawn (only slightly exaggerated) made it look very easy with a cross country dolly having only four inflatable tyres but bigger fatter ones than the Newhaven design.

There are other designs out there. New Haven makes good rugged stuff. The one I see in the photo above I think is the standard NH piano dolly but modified with larger tires. I considered doing that myself at one time. Larger wheels make minor obstacles easier to roll over with 400-900 lbs of piano on it.

Peter Grey Piano Doctor

Hi all, just update on the baldwin 243. The piano was moved to my place. I am glad that I bought it. Much better comparing to my Yamaha YDP-142 (though it is a good entry level digital piano). The action and tone are very good for my level. I think it will stay with me for many years.
Did the pitch raise. Pin block was pretty tight. Here is a short Beyer Op 101 no. 66 YouTube video I recorded today.

Congratulations again on your Baldwin 243 studio upright piano! I watched your YT video and the piano looks good and sounds good. Your playing was nice too, and you are doing well with your left-hand/right-hand independence. Not an easy thing to do.

All the best!

Rick

Congrats, it sounds great!!

Wait, is this the piano that you payed $100 for, plus $500 for moving??

If so, fantastic! Definitely money well-spent!!

How did the tuning/pitch raise set you back?

Hi Hanchen
Your new Baldwin sounds GREAT! Congrats 😊