The Effects of Moving and Storage

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The Effects on Tuning
The Effects on Pedals
Other Effects
About Storage
Storage In An Unheated Space

The Effects on Tuning. The piano is hoisted out of a third-story window, trucked across the state, and later that day hoisted into a fifth-floor apartment. After the movers leave, the pianist sits down to play, and is surprised to find the piano in very good tune. Two weeks later, the piano sounds terrible. This common scenario occurs because it is not generally the physical moving of the piano that puts it out of tune—it is the change in humidity from one location to another, and this change takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to show its effect. For this reason, you should wait at least two weeks after moving before having the piano tuned. Only with some of the cheaper spinets and consoles will the actual physical moving affect the tuning directly.

The Effects on Pedals. Grand piano pedals are frequently out of kilter after a move. Shims of leather or cardboard used to take up slack in the trapwork often fall out when the lyre is removed. Also, less careful movers sometimes mix up the order of the pedal rods that rise from the back of the pedals. These rods are not always equal in length and so may not be interchangeable. Pedal dowels in verticals also sometimes fall out of place. It is a fairly simple matter for your piano technician to correct these problems when he or she comes to tune the piano. Special note: If your grand piano has lyre braces (which it should), be sure the movers remember to put them back on. Movers often forget and leave them in the truck, never to be seen again.

Other Effects. The effects of moving, except those mentioned above, are very unpredictable, especially if there is a large difference in humidity between the old and new locations. Warning: a piano that has been in a damp or unheated place for many years should never be moved to a dry or well-heated location. Such pianos are known to self-destruct in a short time.

One additional item to check on a grand piano before moving: because a grand is placed on its side to be moved, a narrow wooden rail called a key stop rail is mounted on top of the keys, behind the fallboard, to prevent the keys from falling off the key frame during moving. If the key stop rail is missing or not securely installed, as sometimes happens, the keys will be in terrible disarray and completely unplayable after moving. A technician can fix this, but it may take a while even to extricate the action from the piano. If you know you're going to be moving, have your technician check for the key stop rail before the move. Although less common, a similar problem can occur in a vertical if it has to be upended to get it around a tight corner.

About Storage. The best advice about storing a piano is not to do it if you can help it, or to store it with a friend who will use it and take good care of it. Storing a piano involves extra moving and an uncertain environment and certainly doesn't improve the instrument, to say the least. Still, there are times when storing a piano is unavoidable, such as when you have to move out of your house before the movers are scheduled for the long-distance haul (in which case they will pick up and store your goods for you) or when you arrive in a new city before you have found a permanent place to live.

Most cities and towns now have self-storage places that offer cubicles of various sizes for rent by the month. When choosing one, it's preferable that it be at least minimally heated, though an unheated space is far better than one that is overheated. The smallest-size cubicle in which you can store the piano will probably be determined by the size of the door, rather than by the size of the cubicle. Typical cubicle sizes might be 8 x 8 x 6 feet or 5 x 10 x 8 feet. Smaller sizes may not have a big enough door. Also be sure that the cubicle you're given is not upstairs and does not have an overhead entrance requiring a ladder, movable stairs, or forklift.

Monthly rates for the sizes mentioned above vary enormously. Phone calls around the country revealed rates as low as $30 per month in some rural Midwestern towns and as high as $100 a month in the larger cities.

Storage in an unheated space. Many people keep pianos in summer homes and wonder how to protect the piano in the winter when the place is unheated. The conventional wisdom is that pianos should never be allowed to freeze, but any technician will tell you that pianos left unheated year after year are often in better condition than those in well-heated houses, the latter usually suffering from the effects of over-dryness. Some experts advise stuffing the piano with rolled-up newspaper to absorb the dampness that often accompanies low temperatures. But my sources in the Maine woods tell me that, more often than not, those newspapers just end up as nests for mice, and the torn up soggy newsprint is hard to extricate from the piano come spring. Their advice? Place some mothballs in the piano (but don't let them touch the finish), close up the piano, and leave it as it is. (Alternatively, says the Maine woodsman, put some chewing tobacco in a cheesecloth sack and hang it inside the piano.)

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