[CAUT] Church Heat

[Jim Busby]

Tim,

I've been tuning pianos for years in churches where they do as mentioned
(only used Sundays, with a few meetings on Tues, Wed.) and what I've
found is that they stay in tune remarkably well as long as it is only a
few hours on Sunday. Likewise, I've never seen any ill effects to the
pianos by doing this. I think this is because unless uncovered (opened)
the massive plate takes 12-24 hours to get to room temperature (unless
it's in an overheated room or by a vent) so it doesn't "tweak" anything.
However, when someone decides to "warm up" the church every Saturday
too, well then we've got trouble! There was an article in the journal
about how much time/temperature it took to warm the plate up. In effect,
the plate acts like a cold pack in an ice chest and as long as the
strings are enclosed it doesn't affect the piano for the 12 - 24hr. I'll
see if I can find the article. Of course, when tuning you have to open
an upright but if the room is heating up I leave the grand lids closed.
Seems to help (a lot).

In the LDS Church FM Group where I am (about 100 pianos, 20 churches)
they did several studies and found the contrary to what the article
said. They found that if they leave the temperature at 60 on the off
days then turn it up to 70 on the days it is used (Sunday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, mostly) it saved a bit over the 50 - 70 swing. Go figure.
That is now policy; to set all thermostats to 60/70. BTW, this is in
rural Utah (cold) where they use propane fuel. For electric heat I think
it would be as the article said. Also, I think that when the people came
and found it too cold they had a tendency to turn the heat WAY up. Now
they're locked out of the thermostat boxes.

Jim Busby BYU

-----Original Message-----
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Tim Coates
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 4:10 PM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: [CAUT] Church Heat

I found this question and answer in the Sunday paper.  I understand the 
answer is concerning the building, but with churches I tend to be 
concerned about other issues besides just the building.

Anyone have some thoughts about this issue?

Tim Coates