The pieces other crews say no to
Piano movers, safe movers and hot tub movers are three different searches, but in the Austin area they are often the same phone call, and the answer from most moving companies is no. It is not the same as carrying a couch. An upright piano is 400 to 800 pounds sitting on three legs and a caster that will snap. A gun safe is 500 to 1,500 pounds and it does not bend. We take those pieces, we do it every week, and we quote the price in writing before you book.
Titan Moving & Delivery runs a delivery arm alongside the moving crew, which is why we say yes to the single heavy item that nobody else wants. We are family owned out of Del Valle, seven crew, and owner Lee Lucio has been moving this kind of freight since the late 1990s.
How much does it cost to move a piano
An upright piano moved locally in the Austin area typically starts around $300 and climbs from there. A baby grand or a full grand is more, often $500 to $900 and up, because it has to be taken partly apart, laid on a padded piano board, strapped, and carried on its side.
Three things drive the number, and none of them are negotiable physics.
- Stairs: the single biggest factor. A piano on flat ground with a straight path to the truck is a fast job. A spinet coming down a turning staircase in an older Central Austin house is a slow one, and it takes more people.
- Type of piano: spinet and console uprights are the lightest. A full upright is heavier than most people guess. A grand comes apart, which takes time and takes care.
- Access at both ends: door widths, thresholds, a step-up porch, a gravel driveway, a gate the truck cannot get through. We ask about all of it up front so the price on the phone is the price on the day.
If the piano is part of a full house move, it usually rides with everything else and is priced into the job. See local moving for how that works.
How to move a piano cheaply
The cheapest safe way to move a piano is to move it once, on a straight path, with the right equipment. That is genuinely it. The expensive way is to try it with four friends and a furniture dolly, drop it on a stair nose, and end up paying a piano tech to reset the action, or paying a contractor to patch the wall, or paying a hospital.
You can lower the cost with things that are actually in your control. Clear the path before we arrive. Take the storm door off its hinges. Move the car out of the driveway so the truck gets close. Book midweek instead of a Saturday at the end of the month. If you have other things going the same day, put them on the same trip rather than paying for two.
What we will not do is quote you a low number and then discover the stairs. If a piece needs four people, we tell you it needs four people when you call.
Is it worth moving an old piano
Sometimes the honest answer is no, and we would rather say it than take your money. A 40 year old mass-produced console upright usually has little resale value. The market for used uprights is soft almost everywhere, and a piano that has sat unplayed and untuned for a decade may need more work than it is worth.
But value is not only resale. A piano your kids learned on is not a commodity, and a well-built instrument, a good grand or a quality upright that has been maintained, holds real worth and is absolutely worth moving. If you are unsure, have a piano technician look at it before you decide. That is a cheaper phone call than a cross-town move.
People also ask whether anyone will haul a piano away for free. Rarely. Free pickup usually means someone wants a piano they can actually use, and most donated uprights get declined. Churches, schools and community centers will occasionally take a good instrument. If you find a home for it, we will move it there as a normal job.
Gun safes and heavy safes
Safes are the most dangerous thing on this page. A tall gun safe is top-heavy and unforgiving, and it goes through a floor or a foot faster than anything else we carry. We move them on heavy-duty stair-climbing equipment with straps, and we plan the route before touching the safe, not during.
Tell us the height, the width, and the weight from the manufacturer’s spec if you have it, plus whether it is coming out of a basement or going up to a second floor. A 1,000 pound safe going upstairs is a real conversation about whether the floor can carry it. We will have that conversation honestly.
Hot tubs
A hot tub is not heavy for its size so much as it is enormous and awkward, and it has to be drained, disconnected and dry before anyone touches it. Have an electrician disconnect the power. We do not do the electrical work, and no reputable mover should.
The real question with a hot tub is the path. Most of them come in over a fence line, on a crane or tilted on a dolly through a side gate. We come look at the yard, the gate width, the slope, and the overhead lines before quoting. Once it is on the truck it is straightforward. Getting it out of the yard is the job.
The hillside lots in Lakeway are the hardest version of this, a tub sitting on a deck above a slope with the only gate at the bottom of it, and that is a job we walk before we price. An acreage property in Dripping Springs trades the slope for a long gravel drive and a gate the truck has to be able to turn around inside, which is a different problem and an easier one, as long as somebody checked first.
Marble tops, appliances, and other one-off deliveries
Marble and stone table tops crack under their own weight if they are carried flat. They travel on edge, in a padded frame, and they never lie down in the truck. We handle marble regularly and we say up front what the risk is on an older piece with an existing hairline crack.
Appliances are the everyday version of specialty work. Refrigerators, washers, dryers, ranges, chest freezers and treadmills all come apart or come out through a door that is an inch too narrow. We disconnect and reconnect basic appliance hookups where we can do it safely, and we bring a hand truck rated for the weight rather than the one from the hardware store.
Because we also run single-item deliveries, none of this has to be part of a full move. You can book us for one piece. Bought a dining table on Marketplace in Cedar Park and it will not fit in your car? That is a job we do all day. If the item still needs to be crated or wrapped first, our packing service covers that.
Getting a quote on a specialty piece
Send a photo, the make and model if it has one, and tell us what is between the item and the truck: stairs, turns, gates, thresholds. Most specialty quotes we can give on that alone. For hot tubs, grands, and anything over about 800 pounds, Lee will usually come look.
We are licensed and insured, with our own interstate authority, so a piano can go to Dallas or out of state on our own truck with no broker in the middle. Our license numbers are public, and you should check them before you let anyone put a strap on your instrument. We hold 4.7 stars across 47 Google reviews, 44 of them five stars. For the full list of what the crew handles, see our moving services.