Double Whammy Disaster

[Robert Goodale]

Wow, I saw a client today who had the absolute worst thing happen.  This
person is in the high-tech industry and spends about half his time in
Vegas and half the time in Florida, typically alternating every other
month.  He has a Mason & Hamlin 'A' 1920s vintage which I last tuned
about eight months ago.  Although the piano was due a rebuild it was
overall in decent shape considering it's age.

All of his bills go to the Florida address.  About two months ago he
received an astronomically high water bill.  He inquired about it and
the water district said that he had used over 64,000 gallons of water
according to their readings just a couple weeks earlier.  He immediately
called his neighbor in Las Vegas and asked him to see if everything was
all right at his house.  The long of the short of it was that an
upstairs toilet had broke and flooded everything.  The ceiling collapsed
in the room off the kitchen and water ran down from there, across the
floor, and then under a rear door leading outside.  The damage was
extensive but not as bad as it could potentially have been if not for
the location of the door.  Of course this soaking brought the humidity
level in the house up substantially while the water ran for a month with
nobody home.  But the story doesn't end here.

Following this event he later returned to Florida for another month.
About  ten days ago he received a bill from the gas company, again for
an astronomical amount.  He called his neighbor again to go next door
and check it out.  It seems that the thermostat malfunctioned and was
permanently stuck in the on position.  The furnace was on full day and
night for an entire month.  Keep in mind folks, March in Las Vegas isn't
all that cold.  Initial readings put the heat in the house at well over
200 degrees!!  The heat was so intense that the kitchen cabinets were
coming apart, the laminate pealed off the counter tops, and walls
cracked.  He showed me a mostly flat blob of wax that was once a huge
eight inch diameter candle.

Remarkably the veneer didn't come off the piano like it did in the
kitchen but the sound board was ruined with multiple wide cracks
throughout.  It was easy to see negative down bearing.  The pin block
was somewhat weak before as I recall but there was no torque at all
now.  He really wanted me to try and make the piano somewhat playable
and I told him I would do what I could.  I pounded the pins in as far as
they would go without risking damage to the coils and found that there
was barely enough torque to pull it up to pitch.  The whole piano was
more than 200 cents flat, well beyond the measurable range of my
accu-tuner.  After some serious multiple pitch raising I finally got it
back up to A-440 but the tone was dead, just a ghost of what it once was
with almost no sustain.  Eventually he wants me to completely rebuild it
but for now he considers himself really lucky.  I would have to agree.

Rob Goodale, RPT
Las Vegas, NV