Robert,
I enjoy your website and your videos. Thanks so much. My piano is a Baldwin acoustic upright and I have it tuned regularly. But now I have a new piano technician and he is suggesting I add a humidistat to the inside of the piano to regulate humidity at all times. He says this will cause me to not need regular tunings anymore. Does this make sense? I’ve never heard you speak of such a thing.
Sincerely,
Laura
Your tuner gave you some good pointers. In fact, stabilizing the soundboard will help with tuning stability particularly in environments with wide swings of humidity. Although I live in Southern California with a semi-arid climate, I have a Dampp-Chaser System on my concert grand which helps keep the tuning stable. However, all pianos will still require tuning on a regular basis, particularly if they are played a lot. The Dampp-Chaser System just prolongs the life of your tunings.
2 thoughts on “Does a Humidistat Help with Tuning Stability?”
Robert,
I have a Bosendorfer 225 and I’m very interested in not only stable tuning, but sound quality. I’ve found that keeping my home between 45%-55% relative humidity, as recommended by Bosendorfer, really helps the sound quality. I’ve lived in both Southern and Northern California with the piano and there are some pretty dramatic swings in humidity with the heating season, the air conditioning season, the rainy season, the “Santa Ana” events – extremely low humidity. It’s pretty easy to reduce humidity – run the furnace or the air conditioner. So we added a whole house humidifier to our HVAC system to bring the humidity up as needed. The sound of the piano is wonderful all year round now, and the tuning is extremely stable. I’ve found that a properly tuned piano in an overly dry environment just doesn’t sound nearly as rich and full as when the humidity is around 50%. The soundboard just vibrates so nicely when it’s not dry brittle.
The side benefits are nice too – no static shocks when it gets really dry outside, and a generally more healthy environment inside our home.
I recently purchased an older Sohmer grand which was delivered from the east coast to me in Colorado and now resides in my home at 7300 feet! My concern about humidity levels was a determining factor in my purchase, but very few pianos are totally acclimated to “high & dry” situations without the assist of a humidifier. I was told that I should keep my room’s humidity at no less than 35%, which is very difficult, especially during the summer months when windows and doors are open. I keep a very large bowl of water under the sound board and have a small humidifier running round the clock, but where I once was able to maintain 35%, I’m now looking at 20% and am considering purchasing a larger unit (humidifies 2700 sf).
You mention that your humidity level in SoCal, when tested by your technician, was “just right”, and that the humidity level should be “stable” in dryer environments, but you do not tell us what those “just right…stable” levels are! Can you provide more detail. Read the above comment from the Bosendorfer owner, and know there is absolutely no way I can ever achieve 50% humidity in my home because it is a hot-water system which runs only in the winter…no air conditioning needed. HELP!