Pianos vs. Pool Tables: Moving from behind the eight ball

For professional movers, piano relocations are like tours of duty. They remember every piano they've ever moved and most of them have their own story.

“Oh god — too many,” Kamloops mover Ron Fill says. “Too many, man. Too many.”

At this point in Ron's lengthy career as a mover, pianos have become more of a common-place source of annoyance. Whether they be uprights jammed into a dusty corner or baby grands that are the centre piece of a parlour, pianos are almost always awkward, heavy and loaded with sentimental value. In short, it's a pain to get them out of a house.

And yet, Ron says that Pianos aren't actually the most difficult thing to move.

“I’ll tell you what’s worse than pianos,” he said. “Pool tables. They suck. They are so bad.”

And it's not just a weight thing. While Pianos are admittedly heavy, Ron points out that their wooden frames are relatively solid and offer good gripping points, making the job manageable and safe for movers.

“Usually they’ve got good lips to grab onto,” Ron says. “They’re always made of wood, so you can always get a good grip on them.”

Once the grip is secured and the right lifting techniques are employed, a moving team can work miracles with a piano; shifting and rocking it inch by inch en route to getting it through a doorway that didn't seem possible for mere mortals.

“You can usually one-man shuffle it about,” Ron said. “It takes a second man to get it out of the building.”

It's not about being physically strong. It's about having control over the piano and the surroundings around you. The movers must not only lift; they must pay attention to everything and everyone around them to avoid damage to the piano, the home and, most importantly, to people.

“The hardest thing is manipulating that weight and getting it through the doors,” Ron said. “Once it’s out the house, the weight’s off your shoulders.”

Knowing the dimensions of the piano is helpful, but knowing the measure of every exit is a must.

“You know the exact dimensions,” Ron explained. “You work out, like — do I have an inch?”

One inch can be the deciding factor.

“That inch is usually what gets it out of the building.”

Staircases complicate everything, especially when they are spiralled.

“We’ve done pianos going up spiral staircases before,” Ron said. “And I can tell you — that sucks.”

So how does that even work?

“It’s just angles and tipping,” Ron says. “You’re not scratching the wall, you’re not scratching the piano, because you’ve got a good grip on it and you know exactly where you are. When you’re on the top, you’re far more in charge of manipulating how it moves. The bottom guy is usually just taking the weight.”

The bottom mover, he adds, rarely has much visibility.

“You’ve usually just got a face full of piano.”

It's all about the guy on top keeping tabs.

“Seeing dimensions is second to none,” Ron says. “Your hand’s dragging against the wall, so you know if you’re pushed to the left or the right. It’s a real balancing act."

Ron still maintains, however, that he'd pick a piano to move over a pool table. While the billiard fixtures may seem relatively simple to move, the difficulty comes in taking them apart, or not being able to at all.

“The thing is, they’re so delicate,” he said. “A lot of the time you can’t disassemble them because they’re glued together.”

Pool tables also contain components invisible to the naked eye that further complicate things.

“You’ll have two or three massive granite slates,” Ron explained. “Each one of those is easily over 300 pounds.”

And there's not a lot of good spots to grab onto, unlike pianos.

“The edges are usually cheap, flimsy plastic,” he said. “You can’t really grab it.”

Even when one customer offered to "help," it really didn't make anything better.

“I said, ‘You can help if you want, but we didn’t need help,’” Ron says of one move that went sideways (so to speak.)

“He thought the table was balanced,” Ron said. “So he let go.”

The table was decidedly NOT balanced.

“It fell over and went through the wall.”

And that's why special item moving isn’t all about strength.

“We’re trained to lift weight,” Ron said. “But weight isn’t the problem.”

Control is key, and with pianos, it's more achievable.

“Once it’s out the front door,” Ron said, “you chuck it in the truck and it’s done.”

But everything leading up to that moment is crucial. After having spent years working on moves in Kamloops, Ron's wisdom has become succinct.

“When it works,” he said, “it’s because everyone knows exactly what they’re doing.”

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