Upright, grand, or player piano — we move it down the stairs, out the door, and recycle most of it. Honest estimate on the phone, final price confirmed on-site before we lift a key.
Or text us a photo of the piano →That's a piano-moving company — they specialize in transporting pianos between homes without damage. We don't do moves. Try Garrison Piano Movers or Bekins Northwest — both well-reviewed locally.
That's removal — what we do. Inherited piano nobody plays, parent's house downsizing, divorce, kid moved out, renovation, broken/unplayable, just bought a house that came with one. We get it out and recycle most of it.
Pianos aren't furniture. An upright is 400 lbs of cast iron, wood, and 230 strings under tension — built to never come apart. Here's what people don't see coming.
Even a "small" upright weighs more than a refrigerator full of bricks. Slide the wrong way on a hardwood floor and you've got steel-wheel gouges your insurance won't cover.
Goodwill stopped accepting pianos around 2015. Salvation Army won't take them. Most thrift stores refuse. Even Craigslist "free" listings sit for months. Pianos sit in homes for years because there's no place to send them.
Seattle craftsman homes average 6–10 entry stairs. Moving a 500-lb piano down stairs without straps, a dolly, and a third person is how people end up in urgent care — and still don't have it gone.
Most homeowners call piano movers first, then learn movers don't haul or dispose — they only transport. Here's the honest comparison.
$0 + your back · weeks
$400–$800 · transport only
$250–$650 · this week
Most Seattle piano removals fall in this range. Send a photo of the piano and the path we'll take out (doorways, stairs, the route to the truck) and we'll give you a real, good-faith estimate on the phone — not a "starting at" teaser. When our crew arrives, we walk the job with you and confirm the final number before we lift a key.
Here's what we look at when we arrive: piano type and weight, the number of stairs we'll navigate, the doorway clearances, and the floor surfaces we have to protect. If any of those bumps the price, we tell you the new number and you decide whether to proceed. No work starts until you say go.
Spinets and consoles (300–400 lbs) are the low end. Standard uprights (400–500 lbs) are the sweet spot. Baby grands, grands, and player pianos (700–1,200 lbs) need more crew and more time.
Ground-floor, wide doorways, paved path to the truck = the low end. Multiple flights of stairs, narrow doors, basement, or second-story balcony adds time and shows up in the on-site number.
Most pianos get dismantled and recycled. Rare playable + tunable instruments may go to a school or church. Either way, we sort and route it — you don't pay separate dump fees.
The Seattle market is full of two games: "$99 starting at" crews that triple the number once they're in your driveway, and "we won't quote until we see it" crews that waste half your Saturday. We do neither. If something we didn't see in the photo changes the scope, you hear it before we start work — never mid-cut, never on the invoice.
Text or upload a photo of the piano and the path we'll take out — doorways, stairs, where the truck will park.
A real Seattle dispatcher calls or texts back with a good-faith estimate — usually within 30 minutes.
Same-week scheduling across King, Snohomish, & Pierce. Two-person crew minimum. Blankets, dollies, straps. Yellow shirts.
We pad the piano, navigate the stairs, load it on the truck, and head to recycling. You pay on completion — cash, card, or check.
The most common — 300–500 lbs. Console, studio, full upright.
5-foot length, 500–600 lbs. We disassemble legs & lyre.
6'+ length, up to 1,200 lbs. Three-person crew, no problem.
Uprights with extra mechanism — yes, even ones that haven't worked in 50 years.
Also: spinets · antique parlor pianos · electronic organs · pipe-organ consoles · pump organs · keyboards · anything piano-shaped that needs to go.
Pianos are gorgeous, mostly recyclable machines — cast iron harp, hardwood case, steel strings, brass hardware. Here's where each part actually ends up.
The 200-lb cast iron plate goes to scrap metal recycling — same chain as appliance recycling.
Hardwood case, spruce soundboard, and structural lumber go to wood recycling or repurposing.
Brass tuning pins, steel strings, felt hammers — sorted and recycled where possible.
If the piano is genuinely playable AND tunable, we try to place it with a school, church, or family. Most old uprights don't qualify — be honest about its condition.
A word on donation: most old pianos can't be donated because they're not tunable — the pin block is worn, the soundboard cracked, or the action is beyond restoration. That's why Goodwill stopped taking them. We try to donate when it makes sense, but the honest answer for ~9 out of 10 pianos we pick up is responsible dismantling and recycling.
"Inherited my mother's upright. Goodwill said no, three movers said no, it sat in the dining room for a year. JBG showed up at 8 AM, took it down two flights without a scratch on the hardwood. Quoted $425, charged $425."
"We finally got the baby grand out of the basement. They came on time, three guys with dollies and straps. Gone in 40 minutes. Crew was respectful — my dad had played it for 35 years."
"Eight stairs from front door to street, narrow Capitol Hill craftsman doorway. Old Wurlitzer upright. Two guys, blankets on every corner, twenty minutes. Worth every dollar I didn't spend on physical therapy."
Cast iron → scrap · Hardwood → recycled lumber · Hardware → reused where possible · No illegal dumping, no landfill shortcut.
Stop walking around it. Send us a photo and we'll have it gone before the weekend.
A real Seattle dispatcher answers the phone. Send a photo, get an honest estimate on the call, and we'll confirm the final number on-site before any work begins. Same-week pickup across King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties — 36 years, same family, same neighborhood.