----- Original Message ----- From: "David Graham" <dcgrpt@earthlink.net> To: <caut@ptg.org> Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 8:54 PM Subject: Re: humidity variance > Though hesitant to fill up everybody's mailbox with another message, I do > want to comment about this. At NIU we spent over $250,000 a couple of years > ago to install a digitally controlled humidity control system. The range of > variance is around 15% from Sept to May. The system is not digitally > controlled when the air conditioning is on, but the wall and duct sensors > are still on, so the heating plant personnel watch them and super-cool then > warm up the air when the humidity gets too high. This has worked very well, > particularly since there is very little going on during the summer, so it > doesn't really matter if the humidity gets up a bit. I just make sure it is > brought down to no more than 45% before I start tuning for the fall > semester. The amount of tuning now needed has dropped drastically. I tune > the studios no more than twice a semester, and they are always on pitch and > generally in tune with themselves. Since we started improving the actions > with Stanwood Touch designs, the main complaint of the piano faculty is that > the students are practicing on pianos in better condition than they had when > they were students. I thought I might have to spend a lot of time watching > the heating plant personnel to make sure they would do their job, but they > have been great. I made two calls over there last year, and one was to find > out when a broken part for the system would be replaced. As soon as it was > repaired, the pianos in that area became very stable again. Before this > system was installed, the range of RH was 15 to 80%. > I have another institutional client (Sherwood Conservatory in Chicago, > where David Stanwood will be teaching an all day class Wednesday during the > convention). They have Dampp-chasers on all of the studio pianos. They > reduced the amount of tuning needed by half. We hope to add undercovers on > most of them next year, but a part-time maintenance man checks and fills > them each week from Sept to May. (They are the older kind that can unplug > the low water light.) > My experience in the Midwest is that controlling the humidity has a > PROFOUND effect on the workload, but I wonder if that would be a universally > quantifiable. Areas with more stable climates would not likely show as great > an effect. >
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC