Elwood, I use the traditional target of 42% relative humidity at 68 degrees F. This could be the same as 37% at 72 degrees in the winter. I don't see how you can maintain 48-52 % in the winter with the heat on. TO apply the same relationship, assuming you accept it as reasonable, would mean keeping the temperature between 58 and 65 degrees year round with your proposed higher humidity. OR are you planning 50% RH at 68-72 F? That's alot of moisture. How is that possible? We have a small room for stringed instrument storage that we keep at higher humidity and 68 -72 temperature year round. The harpsichord goes in there too. But that is one small room and people don't stay in there for any length of time. Maintaining the levels we have is difficult and expensive enough, I don't see how you can get a building to operate at what you are describing and include humans. It's all relative. Chris Solliday rpt ----- Original Message ----- From: Elwood Doss To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 12:29 PM Subject: [CAUT] Ideal humidity levels Just to confirm this with some other CAUTs. The ideal humidity level for pianos is between 48% and 52%. My Interim Chair shared that information with the architects and they said, "Wow, those are some tight parameters." We are planning to press for those parameters. Just wanted to get some thoughts from some of you who have gone through a renovation/construction experience at your schools. Is it a possibility? Very expensive to do that? How far from ideal can we go and keep the pianos in a comfortable environment. I've measured the humidity level in the present Fine Arts Building as low as 25% in winter and 80% in the summer with the air conditioning on. Joy! Elwood Rev. Elwood Doss, Jr., M. M. E., RPT Piano Technician/Technical Director Department of Music 145 Fine Arts Building University of Tennessee at Martin Martin, TN 38237 Office: 731/881-1852 Fax: 731/881-7415 Cell: 731/479-4043 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20090514/38152569/attachment-0001.htm>
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