[CAUT] Dampp-Chasers in institutional setting

[Chris Solliday]

well said Stephen, but I suspect you will need two boxes of wicks unless you have all new systems and are lucky. 
Chris Solliday
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Stephen E Kabat 
  To: College and University Technicians 
  Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 12:57 PM
  Subject: Re: [CAUT] Dampp-Chasers in institutional setting


  Simone,
  Where I work we have 28 Dampp-Chasers, both grand and upright, universal tank and the older types.  I spend 1-2 hours  once a week, on average, filling them, week in, week out. Probably closer to two hours/week. I have a cart salvaged from Property Control to carry a 5 gallon jerrycan around to the rooms from which I fill the watering cans.   Twice a year I change pads: after the school year is over in mid-May and over the holiday break in late December/early January. Here in Cleveland that works the best for our climate and for my schedule.  The building is very dry in the winter and is air-conditioned in the summer so I've added wattage to the de-humidifiers which helps keep the pitch down in the summer.  So I need to budget for one package of pads, (the huge $40 box from Schaff/Pianotek), one case of humidifier treatment at least per year, and time to fill. Let the powers that be be impressed by the fact that anything to help increase the life of a piano is more cost-effective than replacing pianos.  Make them realize that the issue is not about saving them money by not tuning the pianos as much since there are DC's on the pianos; the issue is do they want an effective, educational environment where students can want to practice and learn(and ENROLLMENT can increase) because the physical plant of the music department is in good repair.  Beyond the budget/ bean-counting aspect, you have to educate them and convince them that it is in their best interest(read:ENROLLMENT) to budget for maintenance, and that maintenance is cheaper in the long run than new equipment every 30 years. Sorry for the prolixity; I'm getting off of my soapbox now!
  best,
  Steve Kabat, RPT, Cleveland State University
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20060323/5763827e/attachment.html