Some of the hardest piano moves we do never leave the house. This Yamaha grand only had to go from the ground floor to a room upstairs, in the same house in Bretton, not far from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Getting it there meant taking a window out and lifting the piano in on a telehandler, and you can watch it from start to finish below.
Grand piano window lift, BrettonAn internal move, just not the usual kind
We move pianos within people's homes all the time: room to room, onto a different wall, out of the way while new flooring goes down, and up or down the stairs. Most of those are routine once you know how. She is a returning customer, and this time the job was her Yamaha grand, which needed to go up one floor.
Reading the staircase
With a grand, the staircase decides everything. It goes up on its straight side with the legs and lyre off, and on its side a grand is long and tall at the same time. So we look at the length of each run, the headroom above it and, above all, how much room there is at each turn to swing the full length of the case round without it touching the walls, the ceiling or the banister.
Her staircase curves, and it is tight, much too tight to take a grand. Nowhere on it was there a point where the piano could have been turned safely, and no amount of care on the day would have changed that. As piano movers, that is the honest answer to give, even when it is not the one anyone wants.
The window, and who did what
Rather than give up on having the piano upstairs, she paid to have a large window taken out of the first floor room to give it another way in. From there it was a joint job with a local builder, and splitting it that way played to everyone's strengths.
- The builder brought his old telehandler and ran it on the day.
- We supplied the materials and prepared the piano: legs and lyre off, wrapped in blankets, strapped to a pallet, protected for the lift. We padded the base of the opening, worked the piano through from the room side and rebuilt it afterwards.
A builder knows his machine and where it can stand. We know the piano: where it will take pressure and where it will not, how it needs to sit for the lift, and how it has to come off at the top.
Inches to spare
The window is set in a stone arch directly above the front door, and once the piano was up at that height there was very little room to play with. The builder brought the load level with the opening and our crew, waiting in the room, guided it through the last few feet by hand. It is slow at that point, and it should be. Watch the video and you can see how close the pallet comes to the arch.
Put back together in its new room
Inside, it came off the pallet and back onto its own legs, with the lyre refitted and the pedals checked, before being set where she wanted it. Like any piano that has been moved, it will want a few weeks to settle into the room before it is tuned.
If your piano will not go up the stairs
Talk to a piano mover before you talk to a builder. Plenty of staircases that look impossible are not, and we would much rather find you a way up the stairs than see you pay to take a window out. Equally, if the stairs genuinely will not do, we will say so, and help you work out what will.
When you ask us for a quote, tell us about the route: straight or curved, how many turns, and roughly how wide the stairs are. The more we know about the way in, the better the answer we can give you.
One family, two names
Yorkshire Piano Logistics and Bellwoods Removals are the same family business, based in Huddersfield. The name was registered in 1977, and three generations on it is still the same family. Bellwoods looks after house removals and storage, we look after pianos, and on a job like this the same people turn up whichever name you called.
Bretton is in the Wakefield district, and we are regular piano movers in Wakefield and across West Yorkshire. Whether it is a grand going upstairs, an upright going to a new home or an old piano that needs responsible disposal, you can find out more about our piano removals or call us for a chat.