Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum when are humidity levels dangerous? Mine range from high 20s% to low 40s%

Maybe I'll look into getting a second one of a different brand, but then I'll have two opinions to deal with and won't know which one to trust. That was a new twist this season as well. I had the repairman disable the automatic humidity feature and I have it on manual and cranked up to full power. Still haven't been able to get up past the 30%s. Well, the water heater itself uses gas and only heats when the water is running and needed. I think it only uses electricity for the sensors/computer parts. But the draw on the humidifier is so small that it doesn't trigger the hot water to turn on, but I'll at least be getting room temperature water and sometimes hot water if we've been using hot water elsewhere in the house and it's still hot in the pipes. Actually, we really like the hot water heater. It's cool. It's about the size of a carry-on suitcase and hangs on the wall in the basement. When you run the hot water, it heats it up immediately and for as long as you need it to run.

And before I forget, thanks to everyone who has posted. I know there's plenty already on these topics in the forum and I've read a fair amount, but it's always nice to get a tailored response to a specific question as well as cutting edge info from those of you dealing with this.

Singapore has high humidity. RH ranges from 60% to 95%!!!

I keep my RX3 in a RH controlled room, keeping it at around 60%.

Is this OK?

My technician in fact says that it shouldn't be too dry as the Kawai grands imported into Singapore is made with Malaysian wood.

Windy,

I read the website you posted.

Consistency is the key to longevity. Too much is as bad as too little. A relative humidity of 60% at 70F will result in an EMC in the wood of 11% which is excessive when most soundboards ore glued at dry conditions of around 4-5%.

Maybe the 50-60% recommendation is for wet climates like Singapore. It doesn't make sense that it would be for California.

I'll stick with my original commentary. Most pianos prefer a consistent humidity in the 40-45% range. Hard to do in the Midwest.

(And I apologize for the continued hijack... but who knows, maybe somebody else is considering these humidifer models and will find this helpful.)

Thanks, Robert! This document is *extremely* helpful, and it's exactly the information I wanted when I called Honeywell. (And I am seriously irked they wouldn't refer me to it. Sheesh. )

As you note, it's a moot point given that I already have the system. But I think what swung me over to the TrueSTEAM is that it alleged to do a better job of humidifying even when the heater wasn't going. We are the miserly sort who set our thermostat on 62 when we're gone during the day and at night, and we only raise it to 68 for the evening hours when we're actually home and awake. So I was worried that the evaporative types just wouldn't do the job as well, and our HVAC guys recommended the TrueSTEAM given our situation. Oh well. Time will tell, I guess.

[/Hijack over] Glad to hear you got your water line issues sorted out, cscl. If you haven't already looked into this, one thing I learned through all my research is that an important way of helping your humidifier work better is to make your house "tighter", i.e., go around and caulk all the windows and door seals etc., check to make sure you don't have any problems with the baffles on your vents not closing, and the like. The electric/gas company people are usually willing to come out and do a free energy audit of your home and suggest ways to make it tighter. That will not only make your humidifier more effective but cut down on your heating costs as well.

"Consistency is the key to longevity." Dale Fox

"The most important thing though, is a general level of consistency." Rich Lindahl

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That's the general consensus among Tuner/Technicians that I know. The ideal is seldom approachable in the real world. Just get it close and work with your local climate.

I did get a bit of a chuckle out of Yamaha's advice on dusting the piano. By their measure a lot of the pianos I tune should be clunking and thunking like mad with the usual load of dust, candy wrappers, paper clips and whatnot. They don't.

The problems caused by excessive moisture ingress/egress to timber are:

1]expansion/contraction
2]distortion:cupping,bending,twisting[ permanent or temporary]
3]Splitting
4]wet rot

The solutions are:

1]Ensure timber adequately seasoned [ie dried out] for end use
2]Allow space for unavoidable expansion/contraction
3]use timbers known to be moisture resistent[rules out use of softwoods]
4]Treat timbers post seasoning to resist moisture ingress ie varnish thoroughly
5]maintain appropriate and consistent relative humidity levels close to timber

I wonder how many piano makers actually build in an allowance for expansion/contraction in their timber components.[I have yet to come across any claims in this direction]
Its probably in piano manafacturers interests to maintain the fiction that timber piano components are basically static and immoveable. [hints to the contrary would probably cause nervous breakdowns to some pianists].

All timbers live,breathe and move, even those in a piano.

Can we get some real action from a piano manafacturer who will concede this basic fact and illustrate in their design how they will deal with the problem and incorporate the necessary movement joints to take up incremental timber changes brought on by moisture.?

Ever been to a piano factory?

I'm just a layperson and know that solutions 1, 3, 4, 5 are done already. The better makers spend months to years seasoning their wood for use.

#2 may be problematic in certain applications. Are you saying soundboards should be pre-built with cracks in them? At some point, enough voids in that mechanism has to have a detrimental effect...

No.but would love to visit piano factory.

Yes ,why not split the soundboard.is it so awful.

Surely sufficient scientific progress has been made in the understanding of sound dynamics to split a soundboard ,perhaps in two places.
[i think of stringed instruments with their openings]

Traditionally the soundboard is all of a piece.
Spruce is a softwood and therfore prone to alternating moisture conditions.
A fine timber floor is also all of a piece too and remains so even though
movements joints are incorporated into it.

One last thing cscl, if you do have your humidifier running 24/7 on "manual" make sure your furnace fan is running 24/7 too. If it's only running when there is a call for heat, you won't get the humidity levels you want.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

Mocheol,

Again, my explanation is rudimentary (the techs and rebuilders will have better answers), but Spruce is used because of its superior acoustic properties for that purpose (just like violins, for example). The spruce board is finished with lacquer. Using too much lacquer can harm its ability to vibrate.

I'm sure there must be at least a fine piano rebuilder in Dublin who does "belly work" (the heavy stuff like soundboards and bridges) where you can have a chance to see the different steps in choice, use, seasoning, and drying of woods. It's fun to visit these sort of places, and I wish I could do it more!

RH should be in the 50's year round.

what your humidity "should" be is very climate dependent. consistency is more important than a prescribed range.

maintaining a year-round humidity in chicago in the 50s is not only impossible, but likely ill-advised for the health of your home (mold).

the piano will adapt to your climate.

in a dry climate, such as the inland west and southwest, as long as you don't drop below 30 percent humidity in the winter, you should be okay.

part of your problem is you are letting your room temperature get too high. the warmer your room, the lower your humidity.

please set your thermostat to be at 68 degrees at all times. this will help stabilize both the tuning and the humidity. every time your room temp goes up or down, you affect the tension on the strings.

strive for a range of no more than ten or fifteen percent--say, from 30 to 45 percent. if you can maintain it always between 35 and 45 percent year around, you'll be doing very well.

this should be doable if you lower your room temperature.

if you have a grand, a dampp chaser will only help your soundboard, not the action. and plenty goes wrong with actions suffering wide humidity swings.

it's best to control the humidity in the room. if your whole-house humidifier is not doing the job, then have a small room vaporizer on hand to make up for it in an emergency.

The following image is a screen dump of my Temp/Humidity trace from 12/21/08 to 01/01/09, a reading taken every minute using a data logger from OM-EL-USB-2 (about halfway down the page). We LIVE in the house, this unit is mounted under my piano, I do not have a Damp-Chaser. We have a 80% furnace with a Carrier flow-thru humidifier. My piano is located in our front room which means every time someone comes over, the front door is opened. Wife also likes to leave the front door open when it's sunny so the puppy can enjoy-that's a completely different subject.

I am going to re-set the unit for every minute (11 days of data) and will post back... it can also be set for every 5 seconds (less than a day) 5 mins (56 days), 30 mins (11 mths), every hour (1.8 yrs) and longer...

btw link to pic behind screen dump Ballon Ride

Agree with pique, it is impossible to maintain RH at 50s in Chicago winter.

My whole house humidifier works OK by keeping my house at around 35%. In addition, I run a room humidifier 7/24 so that the humid./temp. meter placed on my grand shows RH about 45% now.

I also have a dehumidifier which is used when outside humidity runs high in spring or fall.

It is not impossible to maintain 50%RH. I am able to do it in NY and right now its Chicago cold and has been so for 2 weeks at least. 45% is the minimum and 65% the maximum RH.

PS, I have no mold.

I wonder about the hundreds of thousands of acoustic pianos out there that have had absolutely no humidity control over the years and are still decent instruments.

Anyway, the music room where my grand piano is located stays between 30%RH and 70% RH. The higher RH is more of a concern to me than lower RH. I have two long dehumidification heater bars and a humidistat control under the belly but I do not have any humidification system. The tuning stability of my piano is very good. I just wish I could play it.

Take care,

Rick

50% in Chicago winter might be possible; I've managed almost 45% in MI. But I don't know how you could maintain 35-45% in the summer; even with A/C, I'm lucky to keep it below 60%--and to do that I have to get the temp. down well below 65.

68 (or higher) is awfully warm to me; I'd say the easiest solution, or at least step in the right direction, would be to lower the thermostat. Easy for me to say, of course, since I'm warm-blooded--but you will save on heating bills, help the environment, support the wool industry, etc., as well as stabilize the piano.

There's an under-appreciated line in Larry Fine's book: "some of the best-preserved pianos I've seen came from unheated or barely heated houses" (slight paraphrase). I keep reminding myself of this as I don another sweater to play: pianos like the cold, and I like the cold, so we get along great that way. (Now if they'd just become a bit fonder of my fingers...)

ljc, new york is a more humid climate than chicago to begin with.

plus, you may get an ugly surprise some day if a future buyer of your house decides to have the inspector look inside the exterior walls!

the pianos that tend to be the best preserved without humidity control are those in dry climates. they adapt to the dry local conditions and the wood is better preserved.

but if you put those same pianos into a more humid climate, they would become wrecks.

likewise, if ljc moved his piano out to montana, the results would not be pretty.

so keeping the piano within a consistent range, be it high or low (but not *too* high and not *too* low) is the key.

The humidity level is most dangerous when you have to board the rescue boat from the roof.