Storing a Piano When You Move into Rented Accommodation

Rental properties and pianos do not often get along. The reasons vary: the landlord objects outright, the floor in the flat is not up to it, the upstairs neighbours are already within their rights to complain about noise, or the living room simply has no wall long enough to take an upright. Whatever the specific constraint, the result is the same. The piano cannot come.

For many people, this moment arrives unexpectedly. A house sale completes faster than expected. A relationship changes the living situation overnight. A job move takes someone to a city where they will be renting for a year or two before they decide where to settle. The piano has to go somewhere, and the options that present themselves are not always good ones.

Why landlords and rental properties say no

An upright piano weighs somewhere between 150 and 250 kilograms depending on age and build. A baby grand adds more. That weight, concentrated on four legs, is enough to concern any landlord whose property has older floorboards, an upstairs location, or a lease that specifies what can and cannot be placed in the property. Even landlords who do not object on principle will often decline once they understand the weight involved.

Noise is the other factor. Most rental agreements in converted houses, purpose-built flats or terraced streets include a nuisance clause that a regularly played piano can run into. A landlord who has other tenants in the building, or who is answerable to a freeholder or management company, has good reason to refuse an instrument that someone might practise on at seven in the evening.

There is also the question of removal. A landlord who allows a piano in knows that getting it out at the end of the tenancy requires specialist handling. A crew, stairs, potentially a crane if it is a ground-floor flat with no corridor wide enough for a grand. Landlords who think ahead will see that as their problem at the end of the tenancy, not just yours.

The alternatives that tend not to work

When the rental property says no, the first instinct is often to ask a family member or friend. It is a reasonable thought, but leaving a piano with someone else depends on that person having a suitable room, a temperature and humidity that will not damage the instrument, and the willingness to have a large object in their home for an indefinite period. Friendships and family relationships have fared worse than that.

Garages come up as an option because they are available and feel enclosed. They are, in fact, one of the worst places a piano can be. The temperature in a garage follows the outside air almost directly. Humidity swings between damp in winter and dry in summer, which causes the soundboard to expand and contract, the glue joints to weaken and the tuning to deteriorate sharply. A piano left in a garage for a year can require a complete overhaul and extended tuning work before it plays well again, and some of the damage, particularly to the soundboard and pin block, may not be fully reversible.

Self-storage units present a similar problem in a different form. A standard self-storage unit is not temperature or humidity controlled. The conditions inside fluctuate with the weather. A piano stored in one over a British winter, with the humidity that comes with that season in most parts of the country, will not emerge in the condition it went in.

What climate-controlled specialist storage provides

Specialist piano storage holds the instrument in a facility where temperature and humidity are managed to the narrow band that acoustic instruments require. A piano in that environment does not experience the expansion and contraction cycles that cause soundboard cracking, glue failure, string corrosion and the sustained detuning that follows periods in uncontrolled conditions.

• Temperature and humidity held stable throughout the year, regardless of the season outside
• Full insurance from the moment of collection, through the storage period and through re-delivery
• No fixed term: the piano stays for a month, a year or longer with no minimum or lock-in
• Specialist piano crews for collection and re-delivery, experienced with uprights, baby grands and concert grands
• Round-the-clock monitored security in a purpose-built facility

The piano is collected from your current address before or during your move and held securely until your next property is ready to take it. If that is six months away, it stays in store for six months. If it turns out to be two years because your circumstances keep changing, the rolling weekly arrangement accommodates that without penalty.

Collecting from the property you are leaving

The collection works from wherever the piano currently sits, which is usually the property you are moving out of. If there is a fixed completion date or a tenancy end date, collection can be timed to happen in the days before you hand back the keys, so there is no gap and no moment where the piano is in a property you have vacated.

Any stair access at the collection address is priced clearly at the point of booking, so you know the full figure before anything is confirmed. There are no surprise additions on the day. If there is stair access at the re-delivery address too, that is costed separately when you come to book the return.

You do not need to be present yourself for the collection if your situation means you have already moved. A family member, a solicitor, an estate agent with access or a trusted neighbour can give the crew access. When you book, you note who will be at the property and a three-hour collection window is confirmed with them directly.

Re-delivery when your circumstances change

When you eventually move into a property that can take the piano, re-delivery is booked separately with as much notice as you can give. There is no fixed end date to work around, and the instrument has been held in conditions that mean it will arrive in the same state it left. Most pianos that come out of specialist storage need a single tuning visit after the move, which is the normal response to a change in environment rather than any deterioration during storage.

If you are not yet certain when or where you will settle, the piano simply stays in store. Part of the Pianospeed Group, PianoStorage handles instruments that are in store for a few weeks and instruments that have been with us for several years. The rolling arrangement exists precisely for situations where the end date is not known at the start.

The piano went in just before the completion date on our old house. It came out two years later when we finally bought somewhere with a proper sitting room. It needed a single tuning and it was exactly as we remembered it.PianoStorage customer