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This is rarely a defect of the piano as built, and more that people don't realize that pianos NEED an environment with a stable humidity of about 45% year-round
by reikonomusha 4y ago
This is rarely a defect of the piano as built, and more that people don't realize that pianos NEED an environment with a stable humidity of about 45% year-round. If humidity changes drastically, the wood will crack and the piano action will suffer.
This is true for any brand of piano.
You can either install a humidity control system (known as "Dampp-Chaser systems") onto the piano itself, or invest in whole-home humidity control. The latter is always preferable when possible.
If you don't do either of these, the piano—even the $250,000 ones—will fall apart over the course of a decade or two. Almost all used pianos held onto by people who don't play (e.g., the piano is furniture) almost always are busted.
- mikestew 4y agoThis is rarely a defect of the piano as built, and more that people don't realize that pianos NEED an environment with a stable humidity of about 45% year-round. This is true of any wood instrument, a guitar being one most familiar to folks. There are humidity control options for smaller instruments, too. All kinds of damage can result, such as sunken or collapsed tops (especially arch topped instruments that can be under a lot of string pressure, such as mandolins) or cracks as in a piano's soundboard. My solution was to move to Seattle where our house generally stays at the perfect 35-45% humidity, and all the instruments are happy.
- aidenn0 4y agoDo uprights need that? My house varies from 5% humidity to 93% humidity...
- reikonomusha 4y agoYes, uprights are definitely affected, in some cases even worse than a grand piano, because the soundboard is abutted to a wall/heat register/whatever with an upright. (Never put pianos near radiators or heat registers!)
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoMy piano tuner was adamant that all uprights need to be on interior walls, which I agree with. That lessens the temperature swings.
- Nition 4y agoHaving a Dampp Chaser in it will help a lot with it staying in tune, at the very least.