[pianotech] Return visit

[William Truitt]

The pan on the stove is a drop in the bucket (or pan) in terms of the
humidity control needed.  It will lend the false sense that something
meaningful is being done, when that pan is inadequate to the task.

The conversation I have with my wood stove customers goes thusly:

Here in New Hampshire with our long, cold, and very dry winters, a wood
stove in the same room with a piano is ultimately the kiss of death.
Relative Humidity can drop below 20% in deep winter, and the corresponding
EMC of the wood can floor out in the 4% range, which is drier than most of
the components in the factory ever were dried to.  We know what happens to
soundboards, etc.

The best thing to do is move the piano to another room away from the wood
stove.  They should not be together.

If the piano must remain in the same room, it is imperative to get a large
humidifier and put it in that room, along with a decent quality room
hygrometer.  Try to get the RH over 30 % if possible.  40% is better but
that is limited by the condensation on the windows that may form.  But as
high as possible without damaging the window frames from the dripping
condensation. You may find the humidifier is putting 3 or 4 gallons of water
a day into the interior air.  

Install a damp chaser in the piano as well.

Tune after the major humidity shifts so that the tuning will last as long as
possible. The October tuning means that her piano is going to smack into the
dropping pitch wall sometime in December or early January. You could be the
finest tuner on the planet, and the pitch is still going to fall through the
floor.  Hell, you could tune it a week before and the result will still be
the same.

Tell her that once a year is inadequate to her needs and the setting the
piano is in.  Two minimum, probably more.  

I would have forewarned this customer back in October that all bets would be
off as far as tuning would be concerned once she got seriously into the
heating season with a wood stove.  That way when the tuning goes kablooey,
she will know that was the predicted result that came true.  If you do go
back to tune it, paid or unpaid, take pitch readings of say every octave on
C, and show her the results.

What I might do to meet her in the middle a bit would be to offer to drop by
and spend half an hour talking with her about humidity control on your dime,
but that if she wished you to retune the piano, that would be full price, as
you are not the cause of the tuning instability.  The inference that goes
with tuning the piano again for free is that it was your fault that it went
out of tune in the first place - which it is NOT.

Good luck.

Will Truitt

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 5:00 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Return visit

John Ross wrote:
> I had mentioned to get it away from the wood stove, however, I should have
> emphasized, as you did, that the wood stove, will have a MAJOR affect. Get
> her to put a pan of water on the stove. It can't do any harm.

Yes it can, actually. It will give her the idea that you suggested a fix,
and
when it doesn't fix her problem, it'll become your problem.

Ron N