How To Measure Piano Humidity Swings

Topic Series Notes: Piano Environment

A good understanding of how humidity relates to the health of your piano has the potential of adding years of life to your piano.  I believe every piano owner would benefit from reading these short articles.

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Recommended Humidity For Piano Health

The general consensus is the best humidity for a piano is 42%. When humidity lowers below 35% or rises above 55% you enter a danger zone. However, it is the swinging back and forth that damages pianos.

Consistent ~ Year Around Humidity Levels Are Best For Your Piano

I have read reports about technicians surprised by how well pianos perform in a dry desert climate where the humidity remains low year around. Maintaining a consistent humidity level is the most important factor for piano health and piano tuning.  However, I do not live in such a climate and it seems to me a consistently dry climate would dry out the wood and damage a piano.  So I recommend you make every effort to maintain humidity as close to 42% as possible. (Click the Hygrometer image to purchase.)

Monitor Your Piano Humidity Swings With A Hygrometer

As a piano tuner, I wish every piano owner and piano customer had a Digital Hygrometer ( Humidity gauge ) sitting on top of their piano. Digital Hygrometers or Digital Hygro Thermometers, like the one pictured above, measure humidity and keep a history of the minimum and maximum temperature and humidity levels reached since the last time that history was reset.  Humidity control is very important for the health of your piano and a good place to start before purchasing a piano humidifier or dehumidifier for moisture control is discovering house humidity surrounding your piano.

For my customers who own Digital Hygrometers and have them sitting on their pianos, as a part of my service, I reset the humidity history every time I tune their pianos. That enables me to keep a close eye on humidity swings in their home since my last piano tuning service and assists in making recommendations.

Even if you have humidity control in your home, it is a good idea to have a separate hygrometer to gauge humidity and record the relative humidity surrounding your piano.  I purchased the one pictured above from a piano supply company, however the same hygrometer can be found here.

Temperature, Humidity, Control In Your Home

To correct a humidity problem it is best to stabilize the environment in your home. Remember, everything in a piano is either made of wood or depends on wooden parts to function, therefore humidity control in your home not only is beneficial to your piano but helps to prevent potential problems with your entire home.

Piano Life Saver

Whenever discussing humidity and how to correct problems, the question usually arises about whether to install a “Dampp-Chaser Humidity Control System” or as they are now called “A Piano Life Saver System” I have some mixed feelings about them. The humidity sensors on the Piano Life Saver humidistat controls both the piano dehumidifier and humidifying features of the system and are beneficial to piano tuning if they are maintained and serviced correctly. However, anyone purchasing these systems should be aware of a few potential negatives:

Maintaining A Life Saver Humidity System

• Dampp-Chaser systems while beneficial to your piano soundboard and tuning, do NOTHING to protect the most important part of your piano ~ the piano pinblock. I emphasize to customers these systems should be viewed as a patch and not a fix to humidity problems, sometimes they forget this important information and become more lax about the environment in their home ~ subjecting the piano to more humidity swings than if they never installed the “Life Saver Humidity System”.

• For piano humidity control, Dampp-Chaser systems need to be filled and serviced regularly. As a piano technician, I inform customers with these systems the reservoir will hold more than one pitcher of water and when the low-water light begins to flash they still have about half of a tank of water left in the reservoir. While that gives them some comfort if the light has been on for a while without noticing, sometimes they procrastinate filling the tank, knowing they have some water left in the tank, resulting in the system completely drying out. In that case there is a small potential for damage to the piano.

• Another problem concerns partially filling the tank. More than a few customers forget you should add one complete whole pitcher of water when the warning light begins to flash. As a result, they watch the light while filling, fearing an over-flow, and just barely fill the tank enough to shut off the light. In such cases they are filling it every few days and then call me asking what is wrong, when the only problem is they are not adding the complete pitcher of water. (Note: If the pitcher that came with your system is marked  “fill to this line”, then filling to the marked line constitutes “one complete whole pitcher of water” as referenced above. )

• Piano Life Saver Systems are also problematic in collecting mold, especially the hose used for filling.  However these mold problems have been partially solved as long as customers remember to add the Humidity Treatment ~ now supplied with new systems. (Click the Humidifier Treatment image to purchase.)

If a customer is aware, and does not forget, these important facts of piano maintenance and maintains them properly, then Dampp-Chaser systems can serve to stabilize tuning and ( while no guarantee ) will help to prevent soundboard cracks.

 

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