Piano Removal in Chicopee, MA

Of everything people try to move out of a house, a piano is the heaviest, and the mass sits in a place that makes it dangerous. Inside the case is a cast iron plate holding roughly eighteen tons of string tension.

Uprights run 400 to 800 pounds depending on height. Spinets sit lowest, while a tall upright or anything with a player mechanism tops the range. Grands run 500 to 1,200 and have to lose their legs and pedal lyre and go over onto a purpose built skid board. Neither is a dolly and optimism situation.

What makes this worse than the number suggests is balance. The mass sits high and toward the back. Let one tip on a staircase and it keeps going. This carries the highest genuine injury risk of anything on this site, and the price reflects that rather than the volume.

Stairs are the entire bill

Ground floor with a clear run to the door is a short visit. The same instrument at the top of a flight, or on the second floor of a three decker off Chicopee Center, can be double or worse. Ask about the staircase on the first call, because that is the figure the quote actually turns on.

Giving it away is worth a try, but be realistic

The used piano market fell apart years ago. Schools, churches and community halls are already full of donated uprights they cannot afford to keep tuned, and most now say no. Something genuinely in tune and in good order might find a home. Something that spent twenty years in a damp cellar will not, and tuning it would cost more than it is worth.

Digital pianos and keyboards are an entirely separate job. Light, they come apart, and they get handled as electronics. Do not let an upright quote get applied to a keyboard.

If it is genuinely old or unusual, one look before it goes is worth having. Some pre war American uprights have value as parts even when the instrument itself is finished, and a local technician can tell you in five minutes whether you are throwing away anything.

Where it ends up

Broken down. The cast iron plate is excellent scrap and goes to a metal yard along with the strings and hardware, and the wooden case goes to a construction and demolition processor. Both metal and wood have been off the Massachusetts landfill list since 1 July 2006, so that split is required rather than optional. Ivory keys on anything pre 1970s are worth mentioning, since they carry legal restrictions on sale.