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I'm looking into getting a grand piano, but can't provide a very good environment for it -- 60-year old frame-and-stucco house in S. Calif., no wall insulation, no central heat/air, just a couple of floor furnaces (not used very often, and it gets chilly), single-pane windows (often open), periodic hot dry Santa Ana conditions, etc. We love the place; a piano may not.

After reading a lot about the environment needed for a piano's stability (tuning-wise and action-wise) and longevity, I wonder: how bad is too bad? And, can a Dampp-Chaser can make enough of a difference in an otherwise not-great environment?

Any thoughts? Thanks and Happy New Year!

You can protect that piano very nicely with a string cover, a couple/few dampp chaser rods and a dampp-chaser humidistat.

Santa Anas may throw it out of tune but SoCal does not see much in the way of dryness related long-term damage such as wood cracks and splits. And Santa Anas only last a couple days usually, which minimizes the problem.

You could add a humidifier component to the dampp-chaser setup to counteract the Santa Ana effects, but if you do you will have to keep up with maintaining the system. You will gain some tuning stability in the process but probably not gain much more than that.

However the string cover + dehumidifier/humidistat setup will be maintenance free. Just keep it plugged in.

How bad is too bad? Without preventive efforts, virtually every grand piano I see in an environment similar to what you describe will have visible rusting within the first decade. Sometimes within the first year, depending on the individual microclimate.

Uprights tend to fare a little better because they are closed boxes, and this slows down the progression of rust to a noticeable degree. However a string cover in a grand will work to much the same effect.

If you take the precautions outlined above, the piano should remain pristinely free of climate damage. However keep in mind that strings can also get rusty from people putting fingers/hands on them, so you have to be careful not to do that either.

What Brick said...except that Brick's post makes the humidifier component of the dampp chaser sound really hard to maintain - basically, all you have to do is dump a watering can full of water (mixed with a little bit of dampp chaser solution to keep away the mildew) into the hose whenever the little indicator light shows that you need to refill the water. It's easy, and I wouldn't even classify it as "maintenance" - it's no harder than watering a plant. You may have to replace the pads once in a while but this is something your tuner can do when it needs to be done. If you use distilled water (or have a water sofener) and the dampp chaser solution, you won't have to replace them very often - we've had the same pads for upwards of 2 years - tech just checked them and said they're fine. If you have lots of minerals in your water, they can get crudded up with scale and need to be replaced every 6 months to a year.

My piano is not in a very good environment either - we are in the NE and have humidity upwards of 80% in the summer and down to 20% in the winter. I turn the heat up to 70 degrees in the day and down to low 60s at night. And we have a woodstove - it's on the other side of the house from the piano but does dry out the air something fierce. The piano is against an outside wall in a corner between a window and a french door (I keep the curtain closed to block direct sunlight). Oh, and it's over a heat vent (although I have stuffed a towel into the vent so barely any air comes out).

With the dampp chaser and string cover, my piano has stayed in tune wonderfully. Last time it was tuned, I had let it go almost 2 years between tunings (oops) and the tech was amazed that it had held its tune so well. The action stays stable as well. So while it is ideal to keep your piano room closed off and at the perfect temperature and humidity, it isn't very practical....but with the dampp chaser and a string cover, it doesn't seem to matter much.

Thanks Brick and lkplatow. Does a string cover affect the piano's tone? And, if used together with a Dampp-Chaser humidifier, does it present any problem of trapping moisture in the piano?

Some people report they are bothered by a slight rolloff of upper harmonics, some report they are not bothered at all, and some report they feel it's an improvement in slightly quashing some unpleasant harmonics.

Some people take it off to play the piano, then put it back on.

I have no way of knowing which camp you would be likely to fall into. But if you are a person who is likely to take the grille covers off a set of speakers before you can be happy listening to them, you will probably focus a lot on the string cover altering the sound.

A proper string cover is 100% wool, and the property of wool is such that it will not trap moisture and may even have an effect helping get rid of it. However, in a few applications such as salt air/ beachfront, I add a 15 watt dehumidifier rod atop the plate under the string cover, just to provide something extra to help the extremeness of the situation.

I didn't mean to put down the humidifier portion at all, just put a perspective on it and incorporate my observation that a % of people get lazy about the small amount of maintenance it does need and tend to neglect it. And I wanted to say that if you don't get the humidifier, it's probably not going to cause long term damage in your particular climate. But by all means go for it if you want, and enjoy the extra bit of tuning stability it does provide, especially during the season you are running heat.

Mike A- It sounds like your local climate is particularly bad for a piano. Why not consider climate controlling the piano room. Put some insulation, close it off, get a standiung humidifier at Sears and a window air conditioner for the summer.

Right. Spend 10X the amount of money I suggested, plus drastically more in energy consumption, not to mention noise factor, for something that will *maybe* work as well as the damp-chaser/string cover version, but still won't last as long and won't keep the dust out of the piano like the string cover will. That's a great idea.

His climate is not particularly bad for piano, especially compared to places like NYC. But the combination of dust getting in and humidity is enough to cause rust and tuning instability. Still, nothing like all the stress cracked woods we see coming from New York in addition to New York rust.

I definitely noticed a difference in tone with the string cover - the whole thing sounds a bit more muted. The bass isn't as booming or resonant. I have a very bright room (hardwood floors, no plush drapes or fluffy furniture or other soft surfaces to absorb the sound) so in a way the muted-ness is welcome, although the bass does bum me out a bit. But I figure if it really bugs me, I can take the string cover off when I play -- so far I've been too lazy to do so but I do have the option.

lkplatow,

It sounds like the fabric may be touching the bass strings somewhere along the speaking length. In some pianos ypu have to be really careful to arrange the cover just right to keep it from touching the strings. Usually the problem area is near the bass bridge. Make sure it's smoothed out and not touching strings. You really shouldn't be getting anything in the way of bass attenuation.

Of course I'm assuming you have an Edwards cover with the built in battens, not just some cloth you cut with no supports, which really will be a problem.