[CAUT] Church Heat

[Tim Coates]

Jim,

Most of the churches I tune for keep the temp at 60 when not in use.   
Organist friends of mine (two who work at the National Music Museum 
((not as organists))) don't like the church buildings down to 50.  So, 
I recommend 60 as the low.

I got a call back about 20 years ago from a minister friend when I had 
tuned the piano cold.  It was out of tune when the heat was up (not 
just his predetermination).  He had stopped by while I was tuning it 
cold and asked if I wanted the heat up for the piano and I said "no" 
because it wouldn't matter.  Well, it did.  When he called back about 
the complaints he said "Do you want me to turn the heat up this time?". 
  I have since started  asking the churches to use whatever heating 
sequence they would use for Sunday before I tune.   The goal is to tune 
at the same temp as it would be on Sunday (whatever that might be) when 
it is used.  I haven't had any complaints since that one 20 years ago.

I had an interesting illustration of this about a month ago.  I was in 
the middle of tuning a C3 in a church with the temp pre-sequenced for 
the tuning time.  Unfortunately, I was about 20 minutes late for the 
tuning due to unforeseen events and the program had been set to keep 
the heat up for only an hour.  The heat went off and the temp started 
dropping quickly.  It dropped by 4 degrees and the piano changed by as 
much as 3 cents in some areas while I was doing a final pass in fine 
tune mode.  The church secretary said "Just finish it up and don't 
worry about it.  No one in the church will be able to tell the 
difference."   I really am not sure how to interpret the last statement 
<g>.   I like to think she was talking about their abilities to 
differentiate  between an in-tune or out-of-tune piano versus my tuning 
skills.

I understand about bringing it to room temp, but that's not my goal.  I 
want it at "use" temp.

Just some thoughts.

Tim Coates



On Jan 2, 2007, at 5:54 PM, Jim Busby wrote:

> 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
>
>