BELCHERTOWN — For Jimmy Burgoff, the moving and hauling business is as much an art as it is a science.
He likens himself to a farmer, who needs to know not just how to plant things, but also how to fix a tractor and the ins and outs of soil chemistry.
Likewise, Burgoff’s expertise goes beyond his ability simply to move items from one place to another. He knows the tolerances of various woods, metals and plastics and how to take things apart and he can mentally plan how to negotiate tricky angles.
And he says his creativity isn’t contained to his nighttime gigs playing the double bass in various local bands.
Throughout his 38 years in the moving business, Burgoff has been tasked with figuring out how to move various kinds of items, from household items to unique and bulky appliances. For example, there was the time he successfully moved a kiln out of a pottery studio in one-foot increments by running his knuckle boom – a kind of crane – down the chimney and into the basement.
“No job is exactly the same,” Burgoff, 60, said in an interview at his Pelham home last week.
It’s hard to separate Burgoff from the business that bears his name, Jimmy Burgoff Moving and Hauling, which is part of why he says he’s had success in the industry. He said 70 percent of his jobs are repeat customers.
“You don’t get a secretary or an answering service – you get me,” he said. “My name is on my business, I want it to have integrity.”
Burgoff and his two or three part-time workers typically get up to three jobs a day in the busy season of June, July and August, while business drastically slows down in the winter, he said.
The operation is based on Route 9 in Belchertown at the Amherst town line.
In addition to completing typical household moves, over half of Burgoff’s work is the delicate task of moving pianos from one place to another – whether that’s on or off a stage at one of the Five Colleges or hauling an $85,000 Steinway piano from central New Jersey to the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst.
But Burgoff said he treated that instrument the same as he treated any of the other 9,000 others he’s been responsible for transporting during his four decades in business.
“There’s no difference. You treat them all with the respect they need,” he said. “Whether a piano is worth $85,000 or $85 you can still do the same damage to it, to its surroundings and yourself.”
That vast piano-hauling resume comes with so much institutional knowledge that Burgoff says he hardly ever has to look at a job before arriving the day of, dolly in hand.
“Knowing what it is, what size it is, what style, manufacturer – that tells me a lot,” he said. “Knowing how many stairs are involved in both locations.”
Another key to Burgoff’s operation is preparation.
“On the truck we carry every possible tool we may need, every possible dolly,” he said. “We’re prepared for any adversary.”
Many of those are custom-made or modified. He’s got six-wheel dollies with pneumatic, treadless tires. That allows Burgoff and his crew to move an item across a soft pine floor, traverse a lawn and move right up the ramp into one of his two trucks.
Then there are ramps of three different lengths, blankets, straps, hoisting systems and elastic bands to hold drawers shut. And just for pianos are boards of various sizes and some with wheels, which are used to transport the instruments once the legs have been taken off.
“I’ve always been one to cart along every possible tool,” Burgoff said. “You want to do it right.”
Customers take notice of Burgoff’s philosophy. The business was recently awarded the Angie’s List Superior Service Award by the subscription-based review company and maintains sterling ratings on other review sites.
One has to look no further than Burgoff’s business card to see where his priorities lie. One side advertises “your Pioneer Valley Moving Specialist.” The other: quality music by bandleader/bassist Jimmy Burgoff, “the musician who moves you.”
And it was his earlier time as a career musician that got him into the moving business.
He started playing the acoustic bass as a 14-year-old living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
“I heard the great Sam Jones playing bass on a Miles Davis album,” Burgoff recalled. “I said, ‘That’s the kind of sound I want to imitate – electric bass doesn’t do it.’”
At 22, he moved from New York to Martha’s Vineyard, where he was required to move his enormous instrument from gig to gig.
“If you play the double bass, you’ve got to get it around, so you’ve got to have a big vehicle,” he said.
And the life of a musician led Burgoff to take on odd jobs, and as he said, one thing led to another.
He was working as a mover for a thrift shop in Vineyard Haven when he met a Steinway technician who taught him how to move pianos. That spawned Jimmy B Hauling Service, which later turned into Burgoff’s current business after he moved to Pelham some two decades ago to raise his children, Pearl, now 20, and Julian, 17.
Looking ahead, Burgoff said retirement is not on the horizon. He plans to continue hauling until he can’t haul anymore and hopes that his children might one day consider taking over or selling the business.
He doesn’t have aspirations to expand, though he admits doing more jobs would be good – he’s got too many other interests that keep a balance in his life including Freemasonry and playing in local bands including the Bees Knees International Cafe Orchestra and The Gypsy Wranglers.
“Stay small and keep it all,” he said is his philosophy.
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com.