At 09:17 PM 9/26/98 -0400, you wrote: >Susan Kline wrote: > >> It didn't have the water tank, however. Colorado is too steadily dry to >> need to add water. It just had the dehumidifier rod and the humidistat. > >Dear Susan, > >You lost me here. If Colorado is too steadily dry, why install a >dehumidifier, which has drying as its function? Wouldn't the piano need >the _humidifier_ instead? > >Clyde Hollinger > Hello, Clyde -- That has not been my experience, either with my family's pianos (a Haddorff spinet and a fine 7 foot Baldwin from the 30's) or with stringed instruments such as my cellos. IMHO (always my humble opinion) it's not the dryness that is the killer, but the cycling back and forth. In fact, I think that given the choice between _always_ very dry or _always_ very damp (without the choice of _always_ nicely in between) the dry will win hands down. I've seen pianos from Montana or Idaho arrive in the Central Valley of California, untuned for 20 years. I had two the same week once, which got my attention. Under a light patina of fine beige dust, they looked brand new! And they were both 1/4 tone sharp! No doubt this sharpness was only from the higher (but not _very_ high) humidity in California. One could do much worse than take a healthy brand new piano and move it to a persistently dry climate. If it's dry enough, it's almost like putting the piano in a time capsule! Remember hearing about the wheat which they found in the desert Indian ruins? Carbon dating made it over a thousand years old, and it still sprouted! Regards, Susan Susan Kline P.O. Box 1651 Philomath, OR 97370 skline@proaxis.com
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