Pianos and the hard-to-move
For years, the specialty jobs have landed squarely on Diego Marroquin’s plate. His week runs to uprights and baby grands, slate billiard tables, gun safes that scale from 600 to better than 1,400 lbs, plus the odd oversized armoire or gallery canvas. Above all else, the calls we field are pianos leaving East Austin walk-ups and downtown towers, where hauling one down stairs is nothing like rolling it onto a lift.
Because no specialty item fits neatly onto an hourly meter, we price each one flat — weighing the piece itself, which floor it lives on, whether stairs or an elevator come into it, and how the curb outside allows loading. Every load is covered to a $1,000,000 cap, starts at sixty cents a pound in released value, and keeps a nine-month claim window.
What the specialty jobs usually price out to
| Piece | Crew | Flat price |
|---|---|---|
| Upright piano, ground floor or elevator building | 3 movers | $440 – $660 |
| Upright piano hauled up a walk-up stairwell | 3 movers | $660 – $950 |
| Baby grand, legs and lyre removed and crated | 3–4 movers | $980 – $1,500 |
| Gun safe, 600–900 lbs, on an elevator | 3 movers | $520 – $820 |
| Slate pool table dismantled, then re-leveled | 3–4 movers | $720 – $1,220 |
Even when a job overruns and the three-person specialty crew ticks over to $205/hr, the signed flat figure is still all you owe.
What makes a stair carry a job unto itself
Take a baby grand down four flights of a Hyde Park walk-up and the legs and lyre come off at the top first, then it is a slow, measured drop landing by landing. Inside a downtown tower, we roll a 1,200-pound safe onto the freight elevator over sheets of laid plywood. When it makes sense, the specialty piece gets its own day — or folds into your residential or long-distance job.
What your Austin, TX flat rate already covers
- Each piano is belted to a padded piano board set on a four-wheel dolly
- Baby grands come apart — legs, lyre and pedals off — with a crate cut to size
- A safe dolly rated over 1,500 pounds plus stair climbers for tight, steep carries
- Slate pool tables taken apart when asked, then re-leveled and the felt inspected
- Furniture-grade padding and wrap for carries down stairwells, loading docks and elevators
- A full-value protection option, capped at $1,000,000
So what does it come to?
Two movers and the truck come in at $155/hr once the clock starts — or pin it down with a single signed Austin flat rate that lays the whole job out on one page
That number already covers your moving blankets, hand trucks, rolls of shrink-wrap and the slow, careful carries a South Congress condo or an East Austin walk-up demands — plus any building COI a downtown high-rise or an HOA out in the suburbs wants on file ahead of load-day. Bring a third mover onto the job and the hourly ticks up to $205.
Get my exact Austin price
