I have reported your inappropriate comment. Good luck w/ the piano, I predict it’s going to go badly due to your controlling attitude.
On the contrary, my hot-headed friend. It’s not a question of “giving a shit,” rather, it’s that I’m far more confident in the mover’s ability to do their job properly and safely than I’d be in either my or your ability to direct them. Of course, if I saw a potentially unsafe condition that they appeared to be unaware of I would speak up, as you should, too. That part of your thread is admirable. What’s insulting is your assumption that because the movers probably have little in the way of formal physics education, that you in your infinite hubris think you can figure out an easier and safer way for them to their jobs.
Well, you can’t. Build a bridge and get over it.
Warning:
Defective Detective, this is an official warning. This isn’t the pit. Abuse of other posters is not permitted here. Do not do this again.
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
Absolutely. Do not, repeat do not, give any instructions, advice or the like. Tell them where you want the piano, pay them what they ask and then stand back. Better yet, go down to the corner coffee shop for donuts and coffe until they are finished.
To the contrary, they study applied physics every day. Each time they move a piano, they learn more about inertia, mass and acceleration than they ever could from a book. After several hundred such moves, they have acquired the equivalent of a doctorate in piano moving. There is nothing they have not seen, and no method they have not tried and discarded as inefficient. That’s why they are the pros, and you are not.
Stranger, you were right. Ergonomics does have something to do with it, insofar as the shape of the piano will force the person on the lower end of the piano to get closer to the CG. Your grasp of physics remains above excellent and I’m sorry I called you on it.
By the way, QED, after careful consideration, I’d be willing to bet I can get that piano up to the second floor, by myself, without so much as a scratch to myself or the piano. So yeah, I can come up with a better way. The only reason I don’t cancel the movers right now is because I would still need their help for the last section of stairs, which has a very tight turn in it. Oh well.
Define “better.” I’m sure it’s possible for one person to do it, but can you do it in fewer man-hours than a professional moving crew? I rather doubt it; I’d put money on it, in fact.
Well, I can tell you this: refrigerator deliverymen moving fridges up and down tight spiral staircases will measure first to see if it’s possible, then suspend the fridge on straps harnessed to themselves, which they can tighten and loosen as they go. I’m sure the piano movers have a similarly practical system. I like the Dutch system: open a really big window and hoist whatever you want through it.
As someone who grew up an an academically oriented white-collar world, has a bachelor’s degree in a science, and went on to work in a blue-collar profession, I can attest to the wisdom in the above responses. This is an area where practical experience is much more applicable than book learning. Even a well-intentioned attempt at offering help, even just ideas, is much more likely to have a negative effect as a distraction than a positive effect as an improvement. I concur that the most helpful thing for the customer to do is stay well out of the way.
As someone who has seen several pianos moved, I’m curious to hear your new and improved way to move them, by yourself easier and safer than the professionals you hired.
Ah, this calls for a Mythbusters-style experiment, albeit I think we need to start with a proof-of-concept and work up, lest the o.p. find himself crushed and/or the owner of an ex-piano. I don’t suppose anyone has a spare busted piano around that they could part with?
And just for the record, I’m not taking any bets against Q.E.D. 
Stranger
Here’s a tutorial: http://laurelandhardycentral.com/mb.htm
So there I was last week, happily noodling about with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, on a full-sized upright 1919 Heintzman . . .
in the middle of a field in the Boreal forest
. . . wondering just how the heck I would ever get that wonderful wall of sound up the flight of stairs into my chalet.
Now, I’m strong as a bull and smart as a streetcar, and I’ve moved quite a few pianos in my day, including my previous full sized Heintzman, but I could barely get one end of this one off the ground. Even with dollies, straps and prozac, forget about a couple of guys moving this behemoth.
Where I live is out of the way. Way out of the way. The nearest piano mover is half a day’s drive from here, in a foreign country. Four strong fellows could move it, but most of my friends who are courageous enough to try piano moving happen to be female and on the far side of middle aged – a very attractive but not very effective brute force committee.
The solution? Climbing webbing for multiple anchor points along my front deck, a couple of 2”x10”x16’ boards for a ramp (one of which broke), a couple of come-alongs for alternating winches, and three of us working away for about half an hour – one person winching, and two people keeping the piano on the ramp.
Now that the Heintzman is inside, life is once again wonderful and the planets are back in alignment, but I sort of miss noodling about on that magnificient wall of sound in the middle of the field in the Boreal forest.
Remember, folks, it isn’t just the weight – it’s where the weight is. An upright piano tips backwards very easily, and a grand on its side can tip either way easily. Winching one up some stairs is a recipe for disaster unless there are people available to keep the piano on track and upright. Once you have people beside or below the piano, you had better be certain that your anchor or winch or rigging will not break, for if it does, you may kill or maim your helpers.
A crew of compent piano movers (not just general movers, but dedicated piano movers) can do the job without the rigging, usually quickly and simply, so why not go with the pros?
Maybe Stan and Ollie could help.
Beaten by three posts. 
Great minds, and all that jazz!
An argument for just shutting up and letting the experts do it the way they know how: Moving a piano is only “just a physics problem” if you don’t care how the piano and the staircase look afterwards. Beyond that, it’s years of learned technique.
My guess is that their response will be something like, “thanks for the calculations, Poindexter, but this is a pretty routine job.” 
More then that, moving a piano is only a physics problem, “in a perfect condo,” where the piano is a cube, the center of gravity is in the center, once each person lifts the weight, the height their holding it dosen’t change, their muscles don’t fatigue, the corner of the carpet doesn’t trip them up, their shoe lace doesn’t come undone and they don’t have a homeowner with a better idea. A textbook physics problem, this is not.
They have professional piano movers for a reason.
Isn’t the way they think they can do it is what physics explains? Physics explains leverage, but leverage was done before anybody knew what physics or leverage meant. One doesn’t need to have taken any physics to understand how force, energy, and distance can work with each other to get results.