Moving a piano or a gun safe in Des Moines
A piano is fragile and heavy. A gun safe is only heavy, and that turns out to be the harder problem. Both need to be raised when you book rather than pointed at when the crew arrives, because both change what equipment turns up.
Why a piano is harder than its weight suggests
The weight is awkwardly placed rather than large. An upright carries most of its mass high and towards the back, which is why one tips far more easily than its footprint suggests. A grand has to have its legs and lyre removed and be moved on its side on a board, which is a different job again and not one to improvise.
The damage that matters is often invisible on the day. Case scratches are obvious; a cracked soundboard or a shifted plate is not, and it turns up when the instrument is next played. That is also why any piano worth moving properly is worth having tuned a few weeks after it lands rather than immediately, once it has settled into the new room's temperature and humidity.
Gun safes and the floor underneath
A full-size safe can weigh more than everything else in the room combined, and the risk is not really to the safe. It is to the stairs, the floor and the people. A safe that gets away from a crew on a staircase is not something anyone stops.
Empty it completely before move day, including the door if it can be removed, since that is where a surprising share of the weight sits. Then be specific about the route: which floor it is on now, which floor it is going to, how many turns the stairs make, and what the surfaces are at both ends. Basement stairs in older Des Moines homes are frequently the deciding factor in whether it can be done at all.
- The make and model, or the height, width, depth and weight if you have them
- Which floor it starts on and which floor it ends on
- Whether the route has stairs, and whether those stairs turn
- The floor surfaces at both ends, including any that must not be marked
- Whether it is currently bolted down
What to tell whoever quotes it
For both items the useful information is the same shape: what it is, where it is, where it is going, and what is in the way. Measurements beat descriptions, and a photo of the route beats both.
The single most common reason a specialty item gets left behind is that it was mentioned as an afterthought on the booking form and the crew arrived without the right equipment. It is a five-minute conversation in advance and a lost day if it is skipped.
The honest question about whether to move it at all
For an old upright of no particular value, the cost of moving it properly can exceed what the instrument is worth, and it is worth asking that question out loud before booking rather than after. Sometimes the right answer is to rehome it locally and buy at the other end.
That calculation does not apply to a safe, which is worth what it protects, or to an instrument someone in the house actually plays.