Welcome back!
A Lifesaver For Your Piano
In the last few months I have been having a piano problem common to many of you in more humid regions, but somewhat rare here in South Texas, especially with the record drought of the last few years. It has been raining. Not the light drizzles that we would have relished for so much of this time, as much for the cooling effect as for the actual water, but the gully-filling downpours that, in this area at least, usually end up with major flooding. Fortunately that has not been the case this time (so far) but, just as an example, we did gain over 10 inches of rain in one two-day period recently, and everything is sufficiently soaked that another rain of that magnitude would probably send some of the small communities in this area floating down the river.
So what, you ask, does this have to do with pianos? The piano I play at church is a medium-grade Asian-built baby grand (nice, but something less than a Baldwin) from the late ’80s or early ’90s. Our cooling system has been working overtime for the last few months as the average temperature most days has been in excess of 100 degrees. Then, when the rains started, the temperatures dropped, so the cooling has been running much less, allowing the humidity to build up in the sanctuary, leading to sticking keys. Fortunately, since our piano technician came out once, only one key still sticks. Unfortunately, that one key is used in over half of the hymns I play and our tech is currently booked solid and unable to make a return visit.
Two previous posts, Why Does My Piano Go Out of Tune? , and Care of Your Piano talk in more detail about piano humidity problems. Here I want to tell you about one way to help combat these problems, called the Piano Life Saver, a piano humidity control system made by Dampp-Chaser Corporation of Hendersonville, North Carolina. The system consists of three primary components, a humidifier, a dehumidifier, and a humidistat that work together to create a micro-environment around the piano. The humidistat is the control unit that senses the humidity and turns the humidifier and dehumidifier on or off as needed to maintain an ideal level of humidity in the piano.
These systems are not cheap ($500-800) and the company does require that they be installed by a professional for warranty purposes, but if you have more than $3000 invested in a piano, it would be worth the cost to protect your investment. Will they prevent all piano humidity problems? I don’t think so. I was called out once to look at a piano that “needed a few strings replaced”. When I got there, I found a baby grand, less than 10 years old, with over half of the strings rusted through and the other half looking like they would pop the next time someone tried to tune them. Seems the client had bought the piano new and moved it to a beach house (in Hawaii, if I remember correctly). Would this product have saved him the cost of a restringing job? I doubt it. However, for those of you with more conventional problems, like summer drought followed by rainy autumn, this system is the way to go.
(NOTE: If you have any personal experience with Dampp-Chaser products, good or bad, please leave a comment and share with the rest of us. )
Photo Credit:
