I posted this question at PW, but I thought I'd ask here as well, since WTF is pretty much the best place for advice on the planet!

Re my question: my piano is sitting on caster cups, but it's up too high so I'd really like to take it off the cups. As I described before (I think). under the piano is an area rug (not very thick) and a good quality carpet pad (100% recycled felt, 1/4 inch thick). The floor itself is the original hardwood (original to the house, which is about 60 y/o), it was obviously refinished before we bought the house and is absolutely beautiful. So I would hate for the piano to dent or otherwise damage the floor.

BTW I currently have a cushion on the bench and ordered an adjustable bench (arriving tomorrow hopefully) so that raises me up a little bit, but I still would prefer to have the piano off the cups. Besides being down the keyboard a bit, that would also lower the pedals as well.

So, do you think the carpet pad and area rug are enough protection, or is there enough possibility of damaging the floor that I should leave the caster cups in place? The casters themselves are about 1.5" by 1" whereas the caster cups are about 5 inches in diameter, that does probably do a lot to spread out the weight burden...

My piano sits in the caster cups even when on the carpet. I have a nice small antique rug (might be a prayer rug) that I put under the pedals to protect the floor or carpet from heel marks, which also raises my feet up a little. And an adjustable bench for me.

In your situation, there shouldn't be any damage to the wood floor, though the carpet will probably be permanently dented...

With caster cups, is the piano “too high” relative to your forearms/wrists (keyboard too high) or relative to your heels/balls of foot (lyre/peddles too high)?

If you want to prioritize protection for the hardware floor, I’d leave the caster cups in.

If “keyboard too high,” get an adjustable bench, or add rubber feet or felt pads under the piano chair’s legs to elevate it; or add a seat top cushion to elevate you, to align your arms/wrists to the keyboard. A crafty old friend also have this nifty trick: cut a big “X” on a tennis ball, do this on 4 tennis balls, and put each leg of the piano bench into a tennis ball. The tennis balls function like rubber feet. They lift higher than typical rubber feet and still easy to slide on rugs/hardwood without becoming too slippery.

If “lyre/peddles too high,” add yet another small rug (or use a book) to the area right in front of the peddles to elevate your feet to align to the peddle if you need to. Or play with shoes/slippers.

Looking at your photos, your wood floors appear to be oak, which is a very hard wood. And given your house is older, the oak was probably of better quality than if you had just installed an oak floor yesterday. My guess is as far as dents go, you will be just fine with the casters only, especially since you have the area rug and pad. If you were to start rolling the piano around on the wood floor, I'd worry about scratching, but I do not think you'll dent it by removing the caster cups. Just my 2 cents.

The piano casters shouldn't harm your hardwood floor at all. As runtuner said, they will permanently dent your rug/carpet, but there's no help for that. If you didn't have casters, the legs would permanently dent your rug.

Ax's question is good: in what way is it "too high"? Most of the height is added by the wheels, not the casters. It can be a pain to do the pedals if they are high off the ground, but that might just be a situation of getting used to the new dimensions. (My school rehearsal and performance pianos were both wheels-on-dollies, which raised the piano at least 6 inches. Now THAT was "too high" .) If the real issue is the height from your forearms to the keyboard, an adjustable bench could take care of everything.

Well, I don't know, but I think it could happen.

Thanks for all the comments everyone!

Nina, 6 inches! That would be horrible!!

Well, my CBFA (crummy bench from Amazon) was delivered today, I'll see how it works out!

Ax, I think the suggestion of the tennis ball is clever, but since I hope to use this room for piano parties, I don't think I can bring myself to do that kind of thing in here.

I also can't decide if I care about permanently denting the carpet or not. If I knew we weren't going to rearrange the layout....

I need to wait a little longer I think. Hopefully the bench will work out and I can live with the slightly higher position that the caster cups create. If a month or so passes and I really can't adjust, then I'll have to revisit the idea of getting rid of the cups....