[CAUT] Piano Techs as Piano Movers?

[Chris Solliday]

Brian,
 
The cost of outside movers should be weighed against the cost of acquiring the proper equipment (considerable), the training (special) and willingness of the technician crew, and the increased insurance cost. Saving an institution money should never be done at the expense of safe quality work, as in having ten big guys from plant operations pancake a BB Mason onto a four wheeler with the legs and lyre still attached (I once walked in on just such a scene) or four professional furniture movers trying to slide a 9 ft Steinway up a stage front edge on the spine bottom edge and wiping out most of the trapwork in the process or... I could go on and I do digress.

 Be sure and get ALL the equipment and training you could ever possibly need so that no piano or technician is EVER in any danger. Too often we assume (always dangerous), as your administrator seems to be doing, that because you are good tuners, tone and touch regulators, rebuilders, etc that we must be able to move pianos. There is good reason that piano moving is SO OFTEN a separate business. If your staff, led by an administrator who will properly fund all this, wants to ADD this serious skill set to their repertoire, by all means have at it, but beware the surprise game of     "You Catch It You Keep It"     "...pick me I'm the turnip..." "there's a man dressed as some sort of radish trying to get under a BB Mason & Hamlin,   4 stories is a long way to... it looks like he's got it,   but, oh my God..., that's all the time we have for this week's show, but tune in again nex..."

Seriously it's usually cheaper to hire the outside guys especially if you haven't been doing this all along.

Best of luck to you,
Chris Solliday
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Brian Yankee 
  To: caut at ptg.org 
  Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 12:14 PM
  Subject: [CAUT] Piano Techs as Piano Movers?


  Greetings.

  I am the Director of Performance Services at New England Conservatory in Boston. A member of our administration wants to have our Piano Technicians (whom I supervise) move our pianos (mostly a mix of Steinway B's, L's and M's) out of studios, into and out of the piano shop, etc. when the need arises. We have always hired an outside piano moving company to do all of our moves except for occasionally rolling an upright piano down a hallway from one room to another.  

  What prompted this is a proposal to recarpet and paint seven faculty studios this summer. The proposal included an estimate of the cost to hire our movers to remove the pianos from the rooms, bring them to our piano shop for storage on their sides and then to return them to the studios once the work is done. Needless to say, the piano moving costs are considerable. 

  Personally, I think it's inappropriate for piano techs to double as piano movers, but what do I know? I need a reality check: Is this something that piano techs at other colleges and universities do? If not, can you give me some good arguments why they shouldn't? 

  Thanks.

  Brian Yankee
  Director of Performance Services
  New England Conservatory

  ******************************************************************* 
  Brian S. Yankee 
  Director of Performance Services 
  New England Conservatory 
  290 Huntington Ave. 
  Boston, MA 02115 
  Tel: 617-585-1271 
  Fax: 617-585-1270 

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