Quickly posting some info about how to manage humidity. In the DMV area, I’m seeing a lot of pianos damaged by humidity extremes – both very low, and high. It is often repeated that the ideal relative humidity for a piano is 42% (Douglas Adams stands vindicated). Damage in this case means: cracked sound boards and bridges, loose tuning pins, action parts falling apart – some of the worse things that can happen to a piano.
Two methods to regulate your piano’s humidity: they can be used together for best control:
• humidify/dehumidify the room
• install a Piano Life Saver system from Dampp-Chaser
De-Humidify your room:
The Midea 50 Pint with Built-in Pump. Their website is a little confusing, with discontinued products and also not showing straight away the options. This is basically the version I have been using, and no complaints.
It is ideal if you have a drain nearby, because it is smaller and on wheels making it easy to roll around (if needed, between use because it’s a bit heavy). The water storage isn’t very large (it’s rated for removing 50 pints of water per day, not for storing it) – but it has a built-in pump and a drain tube, so that it will automatically drain itself if you have a drain accessible to it. The tube is about 20 feet.
There’s another version which actually holds 50 pints, as well as can pull the same 50 pints from the air. So if you can’t have the pump set up, you could manually empty it once per day. Maybe a good backup option anyway, as it also has the pump and drain tube. No wheels though. Here’s the link to that version.
Humidify your room:
I did a bit of research a while ago, and found that “ultrasonic” were bad, and that “evaporative” were good, and that’s all I remembered. Ultrasonic are low maintenance and are more effective/fast at humidifying, while Evaporative are slower and require the wicks to be replaced. Seems like a clear choice, but you might want to read this article before deciding.
If you do go with the higher maintenance Evap like I did, this is the product I have, Vornado Evap40. It’s very simple, holds 4 gallons which it can disperse in about 24 hours, but wicks need to be replaced every month or so, which costs $13 for the pair (it uses 2 at a time). I bought some 3rd party compatible wicks for about $9/pair, but those went up in price now and aren’t quite as good.
Humidify and Dehumidify your piano with the Piano Life Saver system from Dampp-Chaser
This is the only product of its kind, and I have done many installs. If you have a perfectly regulated room, then great. But even with the great help from the room products above, they are not able to keep up fully create an environment for your piano to thrive.
Uh, thrive?
Yes. The #1 reason pianos go out of tune is actually not from being played (unless it is played heavily). Wood is an organic material that absorbs and releases moisture based on its ambient conditions, and this affects the amount of tangential pressure applied to the strings from the soundboard. The PLS system creates a localized environment around your piano to keep it stable. If your room is pretty good with humidity, the PLS system is the finishing white-glove touch to maintain a stable tuning between service calls. If you don’t have the above units to regulate the room, then the PLS system at least does an effective job at saving your piano from major structural failure.