Piano moving requires balance, patience
WHAT I DO: Tom Hutchinson, Piano Mover
May 17, 2010|By Edward Guthmann, Special to The Chronicle






Tom Hutchinson (left) and Shumar Dornners do a job at the Opera House.
Credit: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle


Tom Hutchinson started moving pianos when he was just out of college. He's climbed rotting staircases, suffered bruises and bashed fingers, and delivered everything from beat-up boxes to Baldwins, Steinways and a gilt-trimmed 1840s Erard.

Hutchinson, 50, started his business, the Piano Movers, in 1990. He lives in Oakland with his wife, Elizabeth, a substitute schoolteacher. They have a daughter, 24, and three sons, ages 20, 17 and 11.

I'm so tired of people asking me, "Do you ever drop a piano?" No, I've never dropped one. Sometimes I'll say, "Do you ask your doctor if he's ever killed anybody on the operating table?" I take it personally.

The other one I get is, "Have you ever seen the Laurel & Hardy movie about the piano movers ("The Music Box")?" Yes, I have. Once I was in a bar and this guy asks, "What do you do?" "I'm a piano mover." He says, "Oh yeah? You ever see Haurel and Lordy?"



I got into moving pianos when I took some time off from college. Got a job with a furniture-moving company and met this guy, my age, who'd just come from Boston. He was moving pianos and he showed me how.

I started my own business with a pickup truck. Walked into every piano store, holding my dolly and a pad, told them I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I got enough work to live on.

I can move a piano by myself if I have to. There are guys who do it. But it's just not worth it. The average piano weighs 450 to 500 pounds, but a 9-foot concert grand can weigh 1,300 pounds. "Come into the world alone, leave it alone, but I'm not working alone." That's my motto.

I charge a flat rate and then $3 per step. I have a receipt from the 1950s I found inside a piano, where it was $25 for the delivery and $3 per flight. There are 12 to 18 steps per flight, usually 15.

I'm 6 feet 8 and weigh 270. The guy I've worked with the last eight years, Shumar, is 6 feet 2 and 280 pounds. A lot of the job isn't lifting. A lot of times we lay a large board across the steps and slide the piano, push it up.

Two people can pick up more than twice as much what one person can pick up. There are times, with a three- or four-floor walk-up in the city, when you get pretty tired. But if you know what you're doing, you're not really picking up the piano all the time.


Source:http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-05-17/entertainment/20901526_1_piano-movers-staircase-balance

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