Frozen Piano

[EHILBERT@midd.middlebury.edu]

Don,
      I would have to concur with Bruce Waller's comments.  We tune quite a
few summer camp pianos here in Vermont.  Most of them are amazingly close to
pitch when we go to retune them.  And many of them are not very old uprights
that were moved out of someone's house to the camp thirty years ago becase
they were not in good enough shape to stay in the house then.  Likewise, i
have quite a few pianos stored in an unheated portion of my barn. Some have
been there for 10 or more years and are essentially the same as when I first
stored them there.  Well sheltered, dry, and unheated storage is probably
far kinder to a piano in this part of the country then being in a heated house
where the humidity extremes will go from mid 20's in the winter to mid
70's on non-rainy days in the humid summer.
      What is the basis for going to small claims court?  The idea that
the piano went out of tune, or the loose tuning pins?  My experience would
rule out the tuning pins becoming loose because it was allowed to get below
freezing.  Is there another issue?
Ed Hilbert