Case Study
Delivery of Concert Grand Piano to Apartment in Crete
Removals to Crete are never straightforward, and our team members are used to going the extra mile to deliver to remote or difficult-to-access locations. Many of our customers worry especially about transporting valuable or fragile items over such a long distance. Our customer Mr Kypri recently had all of these concerns in one removal, with his ambitious plan to transport a top-of-the-range Bosendorfer concert grand piano as part of his removal from the UK to his new apartment in Aghios Nikolaos.
Bosendorfer pianos are among the finest in the world, and Mr Kypris beautiful 2.25m concert grand piano is a magnificent example. The prospect of transporting it for him was both exciting and daunting, since it presented the dual challenges of being both very fragile and extremely heavy. Furthermore, Mr Kypris home in Crete is not a house but an apartment, on a narrow one-way street in the town of Aghios Nikolaos.
As with all of our removals, we planned to transport the piano all the way from door-to-door, by road. We arranged for a specialist piano crating company to meet us on site on collection day and load the export-wrapped piano into a purpose-built wooden crate, which we transported back to our Peterborough warehouse. The crated piano (which now weighed in excess of 1 tonne including the crate) was kept in storage for a short period, while the rest of Mr Kypris furniture was taken straight to Crete. Once we received the go-ahead from Mr Kypri to deliver the piano, we booked it onto our next scheduled departure, due to arrive in Crete just prior to Easter.
Because of the narrow streets in Aghios Nikolaos, we knew that our large international lorry would not be able to reach the apartment, so we planned a strategy which involved transferring the piano into our medium-sized shuttle van and then using a crane to lift it into the apartment. Our team of four men would then bring the piano inside, unwrap it and assemble it under the supervision of a piano technician, all of whom were booked in advance.
However, despite our detailed communication regarding this time-sensitive operation, the Cretan company operating the crane failed to turn up! Thankfully Mr Kypri and our team kept their cool, and a few phone calls had the crane outside and ready to go. The crate was removed and the piano (still wrapped and on a special shoe) was transferred to the crane vehicle, then lifted gracefully into the air, and finally onto Mr Kypris balcony. Our team then brought the piano inside, removed all of the wrapping materials and reassembled the beautiful instrument in its new home, in perfect condition.
Planning and communication were the cornerstones of this removal, but most important was the determination of our team to overcome any last-minute obstacles and complete the job properly on the day.
Mr Kypri said I was delighted with everybody I dealt with at Nomad, in England and in Crete. Everybody was enthusiastic and competent, and getting the job done properly overrode any other considerations. I would heartily recommend them.