[pianotech] Hydroceel

[Gregor _]

Hydroceel is a good thing! Indeed it´s pretty common here in Europe, not for nothing. It works for the European climate which is not so extreme. In winter I visit customers who have about 30-35 % humidity in their flats, I seldom had measurements less than 30 %. Probably the average of a typical clients home whithout floor heating is between 35 and 40 %. I guess there are regions in the USA or Australia where this would be a pleasing high data. In that range Hydroceel helps a lot and it´s cheap. I never measured it, but I guess it soaks about 3 or 4 liters of water. Usually it´s empty after 2 weeks. I am sure that these units make a tuning much more stable and we have lesser problems with loose screws. 

Once I used it for my private piano. I used to live in a house with much wood which soaked most of the humidity out of the air, so there was not much more left for the piano. The heating period begun and the piano went out of tune (about 30 % humidity). After a few weeks I installed a Hydroceel and the tuning cured itself to a certain degree. Okay, I could have tuned it instead, but which tuner tunes his own piano on a regular base? Be honest!  ;-)

There are different brands on the market. Once I ordered an other than original Hydroceel, but it had the tendency to mold.

Gregor

------------------------------------------
piano technician - tuner - dealer
Münster, Germany
www.weldert.de




Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:39:02 -0400
From: zeno.wood at gmail.com
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: [pianotech] Hydroceel

Any hear of a Hydroceel Unit, a plastic tube with a sponge inside, used to help the humidity level in a piano?  I believe they're pretty  common in Europe, and I ran into one here (in a piano that had been shipped over)  Any idea of where to get one in the US?


Thanks,
Zeno Wood
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
http://redirect.gimas.net/?n=M1004xIE82
Sicher und anonym surfen? Der Internet Explorer 8 macht es möglich!
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100430/bf56fc6c/attachment.htm>