How a piano takes a half-flight
Backwards, slowly, and with more people than seems necessary until you watch it. The piano is strapped to a piano trolley on the level, then the trolley takes the treads one at a time with two crew below the load and one above, and one voice, only one, calling each tread. On the landing it rests, everyone changes grip, and the next flight starts fresh. The route was cleared, measured and padded before the piano left its wall.
Grands travel differently: legs and lyre off, body on its side on a piano board, wrapped like the furniture it secretly is. Either way the quote is set after we have seen the stairs, not before. A piano over two or more half-flights is exactly the job phone estimates get wrong, so we do not make them.
Other heavy singles
Pool tables (slate comes out first, always), safes, stone benchtop offcuts someone optimistically kept, workshop machinery, the marble table nobody remembers buying. Same discipline: route walked, weight shared, house protected. If a piece genuinely needs gear beyond a five-person crew, cranes and all, we say so at the walkthrough rather than discovering it at 2pm.
The crew and the rate
A piano inside a full house move simply joins the plan. As a stand-alone job it usually runs with the 3 + 1 crew at $350/hr; hours depend on the stairs, which is why the route gets walked first. All rates: one page, no surprises.