Piano storage
Whether the live room is being rebuilt, a project has ended or the studio is between major bookings, we collect your piano, hold it in climate-controlled, insured storage and return it in the condition it left.
Book storageWhy studios store
Recording studios call us at a handful of predictable moments. A live room is being gutted for acoustic treatment, new flooring or a complete redesign, and a valuable piano cannot share a space with construction dust, drills and the temperature swings that come with an open building. A studio is moving to a new address and needs somewhere secure for the piano while the new space is fitted out. A project has finished, bookings are sparse and the studio is rationalising the space it pays for.
In each case the piano is a professional asset. It was chosen to sound right on recordings, it is worth protecting, and it needs to come back in the condition it left. Leaving it in a damp corner of the building, a self-storage unit or a locked room that nobody is managing through a refit is a risk that specialist piano storage removes.
Why conditions matter
The standard for a studio piano is higher than almost any other storage situation. When it comes back from storage, it needs to be in tune, the action needs to feel right and nothing about it should make a session engineer stop and wonder. That standard depends almost entirely on what happened to the piano while it was away.
Climate-controlled storage is the most reliable form of preservation available for a piano held over a long, unpredictable gap. A piano stored in an unmanaged space, a building site atmosphere or a cold unit loses tuning quickly as the wood moves and the pins shift. Humid summer conditions promote mould in the felt and action parts. A damp winter inside an empty building does the same damage more slowly. Stable temperature and humidity year round keep the instrument close to its recording condition throughout.
How it works
You tell us what the piano is, where it is in the building and any access details we need to know. Our specialist piano crews arrive in a confirmed window, wrap the instrument properly before it moves and take it to our climate-controlled storage facility. Everything is logged against your booking, and we can supply written confirmation of the collection and the insurance details for your own records.
Access situations that recording studios often present, such as a piano on an upper floor, a narrow staircase in an older converted building or a goods entrance that needs coordinating with building management, are all priced clearly at the time of booking. There are no additions on collection day.
Flexible terms
Studio work rarely runs to a tidy calendar. A live room refit that was supposed to take three months becomes five. A run of sparse bookings turns into a longer quiet period. A move to a new site gets held up at planning or fit-out. Storage terms that lock you into a fixed contract create unnecessary cost and pressure every time a timeline moves.
There is no fixed term. You pay for the collection and the first four weeks at booking, and after that the weekly rate runs in four-weekly cycles for as long as you need. When the room is ready and the session schedule is back, one message books the return. Because PianoStorage is part of the Pianospeed Group, the whole journey from collection to the final placement in the rebuilt room is handled by one organisation with one record of the instrument throughout.
Ongoing arrangements
Some studios cycle a piano in and out of storage more than once, either because the refit pattern repeats or because the instrument is a shared resource that only specific sessions require. If you are a studio manager who expects to store and retrieve a piano regularly across different projects, or a producer who owns an instrument but has no permanent space to keep it between recordings, a standing arrangement with one specialist provider is worth setting up properly.
Because each booking is logged individually and documentation is available on request, the arrangement also works cleanly for studio insurance purposes and for any external insurers who need to know where a specific instrument is held and under what conditions.
Simple, transparent pricing
Prices include collection, climate-controlled storage and full insurance. Stairs without a lift and off-day collections are priced transparently in the booking. Re-delivery is quoted when you are ready for the piano back.
Questions
Yes. A refit of that length is one of the most common reasons studios call us. There is no minimum or maximum term. We collect the piano before the building work begins, hold it in climate-controlled, insured storage throughout and re-deliver when the room is ready to receive it. If the timeline moves, the storage continues at the same rate and you do not need to renegotiate.
Climate-controlled storage is what protects a piano's tuning over a long absence. The conditions that throw a piano out of tune are humidity swings and temperature extremes, and our facility avoids both. A piano that has been in stable storage will be much closer to session condition than one left in an unmanaged space. We recommend booking a tuner a couple of weeks after re-delivery, once the piano has settled in the room, before the first session.
Yes. Stairs, narrow staircases and upper-floor access are priced clearly during online booking, so you see the full cost before you confirm and there are no additions on collection day. Our specialist piano crews handle these situations regularly, including older converted buildings where the staircase was not designed with a piano in mind.
Not usually. If you are the piano's owner, you can arrange collection directly with us regardless of the building's tenure. It is worth checking your lease in case it contains a clause about removing fixtures, but a piano that the tenant brought in is typically theirs to remove. If there is any doubt, confirm with your landlord before booking.
Yes. We provide written confirmation of collection and can supply details of the storage conditions and insurance cover for your records. If your instrument insurer requires specific information about how the piano is held, contact us before booking and we will confirm what we can provide.
Yes. Re-delivery goes to any address on GB mainland or in Belfast, not only the address we collected from. Let us know the new studio address when you book the return and we confirm the next available delivery date for that postcode area. If there are access considerations at the new site, tell us in advance so the crew arrives prepared.
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