<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: Water damage/Insurance claims</title></head><body> <div><font face="Book Antiqua" size="+2">Brian, Willem is absolutly right. You need to approach that piano as a total loss. What will probably happen is that the owners insurance will not be enough, when added up and deductibles accounted for, to cover all the repairs they have to make to the house. They will probably settle for a lump sum and keep the old one rather than buy a new one, much like I kept my car after the last hail storm. You will then have to deal with rust, soundboard and bridge seperations and bottom board problems. I have one Yamaha from River Ridge that got 15" of water in it in 95, I treated the strings with CRC, pulled the bass bridge pins and epoxied the holes, reglued the bass bridge to the apron which held on just fine and that was it. It's holding up well. Of course the owners have been warned that it may show more, serious problems at any time. The #1 problem I've seen right away after flooding, besides mildew, is that a lot of the bottom boards just fall apart. That doesnt kill a piano structurally but it makes it awful hard to use the pedals....</font></div> <div>-- <br> Dave <br> <br> <br> -----------------------------<br> Dave Doremus RPT<br> New Orleans<br> algiers_piano@bellsouth.net<br> ------------------------------</div> </body> </html>