About us
Three generations of moving pianos
My father registered the name in 1977. I took the business on in 2004. A few years ago my son joined the vans, which makes him the third of us to do this for a living.
One family, one trade
My father registered the name in 1977, though he had been moving pianos a good while before the paperwork caught up with him, and he ran it for the best part of thirty years. I took it over in 2004 and have had it since. A few years ago my son joined the vans, which makes him the third generation of this family to move pianos for a living.
That is a long time to spend on one job, and it shows up in ways that are hard to advertise. We can usually tell which staircase is going to be trouble before we have seen it. The right kit comes off the van rather than the nearest kit. Nobody is learning on your instrument.
It also means there is nobody to hide behind. The name on the van is our name, and if a move goes badly it is a family problem rather than a customer service problem. That is a better guarantee than anything we could write on a website.
If you have looked at the town pages on this site, you will have seen the same curly-haired lad carrying pianos down staircases and out through front doors. That is my son. Every photograph on this site is one of our own jobs, and most of them have him in.
The fourth generation, currently in training
This one came in for disposal years ago. It was past playing and past repair, but the case was sound, so rather than break it up we had it painted and sent it off to a friend's pumpkin patch at Cockfields Farm. It spent the whole season out in the field being climbed on and hammered by every child who came through the gate, which is a better end than a skip.
Our friend has since moved on and now runs Monk Park Farm near Thirsk, which is very much our patch.
The small one on the keys is my grandson, with my daughter keeping hold of him. Fourth generation, currently in training.
There is a serious point in it too. People feel bad about getting rid of a piano, and they put the call off for months because it feels like giving up on something. Under 1% of every instrument we clear reaches landfill. Some are broken down and recycled properly. Occasionally one gets painted and goes off to a field full of pumpkins.
What it means on the day
A piano move is one of those jobs where nothing much appears to happen and then everything happens at once. The planning is the part that matters: measuring the doorway, working out the turn at the top of the stairs, deciding whether the instrument goes on a skid or a trolley, protecting the banister before anything is lifted.
We work across the whole of Yorkshire, from terraced streets in the Five Towns to period houses around Harrogate and Wetherby. We move uprights, grands and digital pianos, store instruments between homes, and clear and recycle the ones that have come to the end. Every move is fully insured.
Need a piano moving?
Tell us what it is, where it is going and what the access is like, and we'll put a price together.