[CAUT] Building humidity now, GREAT!

[Ed Sutton]

At a school where I worked, the plans for remodeling the music building sat 
on the director's desk for 25 years, becoming yellow and torn as he showed 
them to incoming faculty and staff. Every 3 years or so, the plans were 
revised, trying to reduce costs and fit them into the budget. Finally the 
architect resigned, as he felt nothing was left of his work that he wanted 
to be associated with.

During the time I worked there, people controlled the climates in their 
rooms by turning the heat as desired, or opening windows, and the situation 
was fairly managable. People don't like 20% RH either. The new plans called 
for sealed windows and practice rooms with no windows at all. I left before 
it was done.

I don't know the results, but I did see a photo of the stage pianos with DC 
buckets improperly installed and hanging well below the pianos.

By the way, the emergency plan was to economize by turning off all utilities 
from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. The faculty were called in as 
"volunteer" painters during the summer. Such is life a state university in 
one of the poorest states in the Union.

Ed S.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Nossaman" <rnossaman at cox.net>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Building humidity now, GREAT!


> On 1/8/2011 1:14 PM, Gerald Groot wrote:
>> Supposedly, at least that's the impression I was given, problems with
>> humidity and piano tuning changes were a major concern and would be
>> addressed with a new HVAC system.
>
> Yup, that was the story I got too.
>
>
>>Maybe the person that told me this doesn't really know which is
>> probably closer to the real truth.
>
> Nobody I could find to talk to after the damage was done knew anything 
> about it. They were all under the vague impression it was "fixed".
>
>
>> I am doing further research on it.  Last night, I sent the powers that 
>> be,
>> including many of the music professors' a nice lengthy email regarding
>> humidity, its effects on pianos and a lot of other information about it 
>> in
>> the hopes that it helps them to understand why they are going out of tune
>> like they are.
>
> I did this too as a final attempt to make the point, just before the 
> decisions were made and construction started.
>
>
>>We all tire of having to constantly explain to one person at
>> a time the causes and effects of humidity changes.  And then, in the
>> meantime having to continually listen to the complaining about it 
>> instead.
>> I find Often while explaining it to them that their eyes become glossed
>> over.  Maybe a letter form will do more.
>
> It sure didn't help in my case.
>
>
>> I also asked for contact information to the person responsible for caring
>> for the HVAC system.  We'll see what happens next week I guess...
>
> Take him to lunch. Maybe he'll buy, but he sure won't be able to turn on a 
> humidifier that isn't installed.
>
>
>>My point being; that
>> they expect pianos to stay in tune for much longer periods of time than 
>> they
>> were built and designed for.  Sheer ignorance.  But yet, it becomes our
>> responsibility to educate them because no one else will.
>
> Right. No one else will, and it's highly unlikely that we can. We do have 
> to continue to try. This is a particularly pernicious and tenacious 
> ignorance, typically resisting all attempts to correct. I spent likely 15+ 
> hours over the years with these folks, going over and over the humidity 
> thing, and even giving short quizzes afterward to make sure they 
> understood. Really simple and basic stuff. Some months later, they had 
> reset to zero and I had to do it all over again. After years and years of 
> this, with the same folks, when it came time for the new HVAC they'd never 
> heard of humidity and had no idea it might be a factor.
>
>
>> It becomes a frustrating venture.
>
> Yes, it's frustrating. These are smart people, and I like every one of 
> them, but they just never got it. Now, they've spent their chance for 
> essentially nothing, and it will be another 60 years before another one 
> comes up on the wheel.
> Ron N