Hi Alan, My hygrometer was registering in late January, 17 % RH and less before she put the humidfier in place. Afterward, I was registering 35 % - 45 %. Dependant upon how cold it was outside and how much fire they had stoked in their pot belly stove. I only tuned it in January so I don't know what the RH was in the summer but if it is like everywhere is in Michigan, it'll be all over the map. When I returned to tune it each January, the piano was always a little sharp about 442. This tells me it was getting more humidity than it was dryness. There was a pot belly fire stove in the corner of the house within 6 feet or so of the piano which they used to heat the whole room. No other heating units were installed in that room. She chose and I accepted that as a wise choice in this case, to set the humidifier right next to the piano between IT and the stove. It seems to have worked well for all of these years blasting pretty much full tilt all day long during the winter months. I have another client that has base board heating that runs along side of each wall and of course also directly behind the piano. I recommended that she place a piece of plexiglas the size of the piano behind it to at least try and divert the heat in that area. The heat seems to now be diverted to the sides and upwards to the ceiling more so than at the backside of the sounding board. Unfortunately, there is no other place to put the piano. That seems to have helped a lot so far. At least, it is better than nothing. Jer From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of allan at sutton.net Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 1:18 PM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Re: [pianotech] Low humidity ok ? Ron, I add this to elements for my intelligence. A lot of air movement in forced air heating would dissipate my hypothetical "micro climat" around the piano anyway. Terry, the small external humidifier would still controlled by a humidistat inside the piano. Gerald, in your client's home, it is positive : is there forced air heating outlet near? What are the minimum and maximum values in that house around the year if not for the humidifier ? Allan Sutton, m.mus. RPT www.pianotechniquemontreal.com 2010/6/20 Terry Farrell <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com> Good point Ron. I forget that some people actually HEAT their homes..... Terry in Tampa (HOT Tampa!) On Jun 20, 2010, at 12:16 PM, Ron Nossaman wrote: allan at sutton.net wrote: Thank you Terry, That precision : "different pianos, different solutions" seems very appropriate to me. I pretty much agree with Terry. Big seasonal (or weekly) humidity swings are a major accelerator to aging, and stability is much more important than the absolute number. Another question : Do many agree that a small external humidifier near the piano will help significantly in adding some humidity to every part of the piano when needed (soundboard and pinblock and action, in a grand piano), albeit as a second choice to whole room conditioning ? It depends on the heating system. With something like room contained convection or radiant heating, an auxiliary humidifier will, or can, help. With a forced air system whatever humidity you put into any given room is sucked out and distributed throughout the house. So unless your humidifier in building wide a forced air system is going through eight gallons or so a day, it's probably not going to help much. Ron N -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100620/ae9acd90/attachment-0001.htm>
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