How to Maintain Your Piano in Different Environments

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Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The subject today is about maintaining your piano in different environments. We have sold pianos to people all over the world, in all different environments. Just in California, you can be in the desert, in the mountains with snow, or on the beach. How can you possibly maintain pianos in all these different environments? Well, I’m going to give you some tips today to help you keep your piano in good condition, whatever environment you’re in.

What environment do pianos love?

Pianos love what you love. They want to be in a place that’s not too humid, not too dry, not too hot, not too cold, and pretty stable. That’s pretty simple. So are we done? Well, not quite, because there’s a lot more to this subject. Some people don’t have the luxury of those choices. For example, say you live on the beach, with the beautiful sound of the ocean waves and the smell of that air. But also, the piano’s very important to you. What are you going to do—close off your living room, use air conditioning, and not let in the ocean air? Of course not. There are compromises you have to make in life, and sadly, your piano may suffer somewhat.

Even in a beach environment, there are simple things you can do to help mitigate the humidity.

Humidity will take its toll on a piano at the beach. But if you simply close your piano, particularly at night when the marine layer comes in, it will help to mitigate the humidity in your piano. You can even get a cover for your piano. If your piano is completely closed and covered when you’re not playing it, or at least at night, that will really help to minimize the humidity that is going to affect the strings and other parts of the instrument. Another thing you can consider is a string cover. You can get a felt cover cut to the exact shape of the inside of your piano. And interestingly, it doesn’t really affect the sound as much as you might think it would. The sound goes right through the thin felt. But it will help protect it from the humidity. As far as underneath the piano, moisture isn’t really going to hurt the soundboard. But moisture will affect the strings, and all the metal parts will tarnish.

Moisture can also affect the action of your piano.

I remember when I was a kid in my father’s studio before he had air conditioning. In the summertime, the whole piano would become sluggish because all those moving parts on each key have felt bushings, which would absorb moisture. So it would feel slow. It would even affect the sound because the hammers absorb moisture, so you get a less brilliant sound. It was just a mess. So putting a string cover in the piano will not just help to protect the metal parts of the piano from tarnishing or rusting, but it will also help to keep the action from gumming up and giving out a dull, lifeless sound.

You may consider getting a dehumidifier system for your piano.

There are other technologies that come into play. For example, something called the Dampp-Chaser System. The Dampp-Chaser or Piano Life Saver are heating rods that usually go under the piano, but sometimes in extreme environments, rods can actually be fit inside the piano as well. And the way it works is with a humidistat. Just like a thermostat measures the temperature of the air, a humidistat measures the humidity level of the air. And once it gets above a certain level, the heating rods will turn on. That heat will help mitigate the moisture. These are all good techniques for dealing with excessive humidity.

What about climates with excessive dryness?

Even though humidity can really destroy a piano, excessive dry air can be even more deadly to the longevity of your piano because the wood dries out and wood joints can crack. It can be a nightmare for people living in the desert. Even in a temperate climate, your home can get very dry if you have hot air heat. If you don’t have a humidification system built into your central heating system, it can get really dry. We first moved to Cleveland just about two and a half years ago, and one of the first things I did was look for a piano for my studio. It was hard to find a piano that would fit up the stairs. I looked for a Chickering Quarter Grand, which has such thin cheek blocks making the piano narrower, so that the piano could make it up the stairs. Not far from here, I found one from the 1970s. I looked at it, and it looked fine, but it was drastically out of tune. The pin block had dried out, and the piano couldn’t hold tuning anymore. And that’s not that old for a piano. We’ve had 50, even 100-year-old pianos with good tuning stability. But the dry environment from the heating system was too much for it. Extremely dry environments can also cause soundboards to crack which can be a disaster for a piano.

What can you do to mitigate the dryness?

Well, you simply need a humidification system. You’re best off having a whole-house system or a room humidifier. Try to keep the humidity around 45 to 50 percent. That’s ideal. If you’re in the thirties or in the sixties, you’re still okay. But when you get down to single-digit humidity, that is a problem. What else can you do? I mentioned the Dampp-Chaser System. They actually have a humidity-adding system as well. There’s a tank that you fill with water, and whenever the humidity level gets too low, it adds humidity underneath the piano to the soundboard, which is the critical place. If the soundboard gets too dry and cracks, you’ve got a rebuild on your hands. There’s no real way to fix a soundboard without pulling the plate and re-stringing. That can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars. If you’re living in a place where the summers are excessively humid and the winters are really dry, you can get a dual system that engages the heating rods when it gets too humid or the water tank when it gets too dry. Some people in dry climates will put a tray of water under their piano just for the evaporative effect. Believe it or not, just filling your room with a bunch of plants is going to add to the humidity of the air environment quite a bit, particularly if you don’t have hot air blowing. If you just have radiator or baseboard heating, that might just do the trick to bring the humidity up a few percentage points.

Direct sunlight on your piano is another big problem.

Obviously, sunlight hitting the inside of the piano can affect the tuning. But sunlight just hitting the case of the piano is a problem. I’ve seen pianos damaged after just a few months of sitting in a room where sunlight would hit the piano part of the day. A telltale sign is the two-tone lid. You have your piano lid folded over, but then you unfold it, and you see that the part that was not exposed to the sun is darker. It’s been bleached by the sun. To avoid this, you could try a window treatment, which will help somewhat, but really, you need to just close your shades when the piano is being subjected to direct sunlight. If your piano is warm to the touch, your finish is going to be damaged over time. After many years of that, your piano will check. Checking is when you get that alligator look. The finish dries out, and there’s no way to deal with it other than stripping everything and refinishing. This is another hugely expensive endeavor. So you want to avoid that.

You should also think about the environment your piano is in in regards to the sound.

Acoustics are so important. If you have a piano in a room that is really dead and you’re pounding it to be able to be heard, you’re going to wear out your piano, and you’re not going to enjoy playing very much. What can you do about that? Well, short of removing soft furniture and curtains, you can actually just put something hard under the piano. You could use a sheet of plexiglass if you have a rug and you don’t want to ruin the look. You just want something that will reflect the sound. About half the sound of a piano comes from underneath. So something that reflects the sound will help. Having your piano open so it projects into the room will also help. How you place your piano factors in as well. You want it open to the room instead of to a wall.

What if the piano is too loud for its environment?

If your piano is hurting your ears, of course you can close the lid, which will certainly help. If you have hardwood floors, putting your piano on a rug will absorb a lot of the sound because, as I mentioned, half the sound is coming out of the bottom. If that doesn’t help, try putting soft furniture and thick drapes in your room. Anything that will absorb the sound is going to help. You could even hang tapestries on the walls. So these are ways that will actually help you enjoy your piano more and increase its longevity. You don’t want to have to pound your piano when you can’t hear it enough or pussyfoot on it and never enjoy the sound of the instrument. Worse yet, sometimes people will have their hammers needled to bring the voicing way down just so it’s not too loud, but you don’t get that nice, rich tone anymore. You don’t want to compromise the voicing of your piano just to accommodate room acoustic problems.

So these are all the things you can do to maintain a good environment for your piano, both for the structural integrity and for the enjoyment of playing it. I hope this is helpful for you! Let me know your thoughts on this subject in the comments here at LivingPianos.com and on YouTube! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at LivingPianos.com, Your Online Piano Resource.

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4 thoughts on “How to Maintain Your Piano in Different Environments”


 
 

  1. Great information as always! Thanks! I once saw a photo in a home decor magazine that showed a potted live fern hanging above the open part of a Baby Grand piano! Obviously the magazine Editor did not have experience with pianos!! Can you imagine water dripping from the plant into the piano?!?!

    1. Having a plant above your piano, could be a disaster! However, having plants in the room with your piano can helpful adding humidity to the environment in the winter time which can help to keep your piano stable.

  2. Wow! Thank you for all the suggestions. I put a length of wool felt over the dropped music stand when the piano is not in use. Hope to keep moisture and dust out more. Will need a new cover over all during winter to protect from sunlight, though shades can be drawn , too. My piano had such a beautiful tone right after the recent tuning. I’d like to keep it that way!

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