What to do with a piano nobody plays

A piano is the biggest thing in the house that nobody wants to talk about. It was expensive once, somebody played it, and now it holds up a wall. Almost none of them sell. The decision you're actually making is how it leaves, and that's a moving problem before it's a money problem.

Find out what you actually have

Open the lid and look. The maker's name is usually cast into the plate or printed above the keys, and the serial number is stamped inside, often on the plate near the tuning pins. That number dates the instrument, and the date tells you whether you've got a working piano or a very heavy antique. Write both down before you call anybody.

Then play it, or get someone who can. Every key, both pedals. A dead note in the middle of the keyboard is a repair, not a quirk, and you need to know that before you describe it to anyone.

Grand, upright, or something nobody wants

Grands and good studio uprights have a market. Most console and spinet uprights from the middle of the last century don't: the soundboard is cracked, the pinblock is tired, and moving it costs more than the piano is worth. Old square grands and player pianos are their own headache, heavy in a way that surprises people.

A tuner can tell you in one visit whether the pinblock still holds and whether it's worth tuning at all. That visit costs less than a move and it's the only honest answer you'll get.

Check these before you list it anywhere

• Every key sounds and comes back up
• Both pedals work
• No crack across the soundboard, no separated ribs
• Tuned in the last few years, or not tuned in decades
• Maker and serial number written down
• A clear path out: door widths, stairs, the turn at the landing, the porch step

Free to a good home still costs a move

Giving it away is the realistic route for most uprights, but the person taking it usually wants you to pay the movers. Schools, churches and piano teachers get offered free pianos constantly and turn most of them down, so call and ask what they'd actually take before you promise anything. A dealer might take a grand on consignment, which means it sits in their showroom and you get paid if it sells.

Whatever route you pick, get the moving quote first. Piano movers price by stairs and distance, and a quote based on a photo is a guess. If the move costs more than the piano would bring, you have your answer.

If it's going out to the curb

A piano doesn't go out in one piece unless somebody is being paid to carry it. Take off the keys and the lid, then the action, and expect the cast iron plate to be far heavier than it looks. It's the one part that can hurt somebody. Some scrappers will take the plate for the metal, so ask before you leave it out.

Do the takedown in the garage or on the driveway, not on the living room floor. Don't cut strings under tension unless you know how that's done safely.

Get it out before the rest of the house

Pianos get left for the last week, and then the truck is booked and the piano is still standing there. Move it early, while the room is empty enough to work in and before floors get refinished or a buyer walks through.

The mistake I see most: keeping the piano because the kids might want it, then paying to move it twice. Ask them now and get a real yes or no. And don't park a piano in a garage or a damp basement while you decide, because it will come out worse than it went in.