Piano Moving in Raleigh, NC Priced by height and flights

Two handling charges, one measurement

Item 10 of Maximum Rate Tariff No. 2 sets a flat handling charge for pianos and organs, and the dividing line is 38 inches of height. Pipe organs, every grand, and any other piano standing 38 inches or taller carry a $111.90 maximum handling charge. Organs and pianos under 38 inches carry $81.65. The charge applies once per shipment for each instrument, and it is in addition to the flight carry charges, not instead of them. Measure the case before anyone quotes: a tall upright and a studio piano can look alike in a living room and land on opposite sides of that line. Portable organs and pianos that one person can conveniently hand carry are exempt from both the handling charge and the flight carry.

Stairs are counted, not estimated

Inside a building the first flight is defined as at least eight steps, additional flights are counted as complete floors above or below it, and an elevator counts as one flight. The maximum inside carry is $33.55 for the first flight and $16.85 for each one after. Outside the building the first flight is 8 but not more than 20 steps at $32.15, and each step past twenty adds sixty cents. Fewer than eight exterior steps is not a flight at all. These charges apply each time the service is rendered, so a piano that comes down four exterior steps at origin and goes up a full interior flight at destination is billed for both events. Count the steps on both ends yourself before the day.

Above 400 pounds the rules change again

Most uprights and every grand clear 400 pounds, and Rule 35(B) removes articles at that weight from the ordinary services the tariff covers. Extra handling above that threshold is either furnished by the shipper or performed by the carrier at Item 6 charges when it has the people and the equipment available. The same rule puts bracing and blocking material on the shipper when what is needed is not part of the truck's regular equipment. In practice that is why a piano job is planned as a separate operation with a board, a skid, straps and four hands, rather than as one more item on a load list.

Boylan Heights and the curb you cannot use

Piano work in Raleigh's older inner neighborhoods is usually a street problem before it is a stair problem. Boylan Heights runs in an S curve for six blocks with typical frontages of 30 to 50 feet and front setbacks of 15 to 30 feet, so there is rarely a legal place to put a 26-foot truck directly in front of the door, and the carry from wherever the truck fits is longer than the plan assumed. Downtown adds a payment window: all downtown areas including Glenwood South require meter payment from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, the Hillsborough District near NC State runs 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and enforcement operates 24 hours every day regardless. A parking pass for a moving van comes from Raleigh Parking directly, and the approved pass has to be displayed the entire time the space is held.

Afternoon storms are the scheduling constraint

An instrument sitting on a driveway or a sidewalk in the wrong hour is the avoidable failure. The National Weather Service office in Raleigh documented 4,150 severe weather reports across its county warning area between 1950 and 2005, with severe report frequency concentrated in the late afternoon and the highest counts between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. local time. The Storm Prediction Center's climatology for the Raleigh radar area puts the primary severe season from April 13 through August 29 and averages 65 report days a year. That argues for a morning slot from May through August, with the instrument wrapped and inside before the daily convection fires rather than staged outside while a crew eats lunch.

Impracticable is a defined condition, not an opinion

Rule 36 says the carrier is not obligated to perform pickup or delivery where it is impracticable to operate vehicles, and it names the reasons: the condition of roads, streets, driveways, alleys or the approaches to them, and inadequate loading or unloading facilities. Rule 37 covers the other end, when delivery cannot physically be completed from the transporting vehicle because the building, its structure, or the nature of the article makes it impossible. In that case the carrier may place the shipment in the nearest available warehouse at the shipper's expense, accrued charges become due at that point, and later delivery counts as a new shipment. A gravel drive on a soft May week in Five Points, or a stairwell that will not take a grand on its side, is worth identifying at the survey rather than discovering with the instrument on a dolly.

What tuning has to do with the move

Moving a piano knocks it out of tune because the soundboard and the strings respond to a change in humidity and temperature, not because of a bump in the truck. Give the instrument two to four weeks in its new room before a tuner comes, so the wood has settled at the new indoor conditions. Keep it off an exterior wall, away from a supply register, and out of direct afternoon sun. If the piano is going into storage rather than a room, ask which storage the shipment is entering, because the tariff's climate-controlled storage is specifically defined as equipment able to hold 60 to 85 degrees and humidity no greater than 90 percent at all times.