Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Placing piano on exterior wall near widow and forced air hea

What is your take on keeping a 60 year old upright on an exterior facing. wall, in front of a glass pane window that does not open?[/i][i]? There is a forced air heat about 2 feet to the left. Will this cause major damage?

Uh. Well, I suppose it depends.

1. How well is that exterior wall insulated?
2. How super-awesome is that window's energy efficiency?
3. Does the forced air heat blow on the piano or away from the piano?

If your answers are:

1. Not that great.
2. Not very super-awesome.
3. On the piano.

Then, no. You should't put the piano there. If in doubt, get a quality hygrometer and keep track of the humidity before you decide to move the piano there.

I have a hygrometer! What is the ideal humidity range?
The window is double panned, but I'm concerned about the sunlight shining .down on the piano. The window is very large. About a double size.
The forced air heat would not hit the piano directly.
Thanks for your info!

40-50% is good. Direct sunlight is a no no! It will make the thing go in and out of tune and damage the finish. Get curtains.

Agreed, moisture level can be higher and lower, but in the high side for old pianos as 55-60 better than 40, but if hygro is stable that is what matters the most in the end, and it varies with seasons.

Direct sun on a piano =trouble

Heater = pinblock fatigue + other problems on the side heated.

External walls when nothing better, but leave a good air flow , that is mostly a problem with condensation.

I've found the "exterior wall" to be a non-issue for modern homes... Close to the outside door? That tends to be more of a problem for some of my clients!

I would worry most about the sun - apart from the bleaching out of the finish, it really can cause the tuning to go all over the place!

Ron Koval

I feel bad for the widow, but I'm not sure that she would have any impact on the piano.

Especially if the widow is double panned.

These overly helpful spellcheckers make us all read like ESL's

Seriously, I would find somewhere else, if at all possible.

I had a client with almost identical circumstances. We tried everything. Finally, he removed a built in bookcase and put the piano there. Now it stays in tune for years at a time.

I use double panning when baking a cheese cake. I have baked windows, too. A window can quickly allow a baked piano.

Better Homes and Gardens magazine once featured a cutline for a photo, which attracted some attention (but not the proofreader's): "Nothing Adds as much Charm to a Home as a few Undraped Widows."

Infinity, if you can't find a more suitable place in your home for the piano, I would suggest you either [1] move, or [2] sell the piano before it's ruined, and get a digital.

On second thought, there's not much in the way of furniture or musical instruments that is really going to benefit from being parked by an HVAC vent, in direct sunlight, and blocking a window. I think an undraped widow is the way to go.

If you have to have music, get one that can sing.

Thanks for the help!
This site only permits me to log on frond my Nook ( hence the typos!) . My reg. computer won't recognize my password

Thanks for all your help!
Below is the photo of the window.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/infinitypiano/?


As you can see by the pic I have quite the dilemma. This is my new home. I can't move! I can't give up the piano for sentimental value. No other wall is available (that doesn't have the same issues). If I shift left I block the heat and to the right I'm in a corner, where a couch is going. How do you feel about me blocking off the window? Black out curtains, or heat/cold out curtains? Which is worse, the sunlight or heat and cod? A blocked window or the HVAC.?


There is no AC from the vents. Should I block off the one vent? What if I cover the window with cardboard leaving only the top 12" exposed? I would like a little sun. Will the very top of the window matter? It's a studio upright.

I would like a little sun. Will the very top of the window matter? It's a studio upright.
Thanks so much!

I have had an informal rule all my tuning life. Whenever there are piano positioning problems, I look around and invariably the ideal place for the piano is where the most comfortable chair is.

You've heard our expertise, it's your piano, how important is the longevity of this piano to you? Would you really blank out windows and everything else rather than make a simple furniture change?

In my case, the couch lost out.

My second brother slept on my third brother's couch for three months, before being ejected from the home. I consider that I have dodged a bullet.

If you just have to have the couch and the present house and the window and the central heating, you might consider getting rid of the piano. Or placing it in a different room. Or getting rid of some other bulky piece of furniture (an entertainment center, for example).

Some people might even consider getting the piano its own apartment.

To judge by the photo, you seem to be caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Are there no other potential placement spots in the house/apartment?

I sympathise with your predicament as I had something similar, with only one suitable space in the house, and which necessitated taking the piano up a tight staircase.

You mention that the piano is 60 years old and is of sentimental value. That suggests that it is not exactly a spring chicken and that it is more of an heirloom than a musical instrument. If that is the case, then the question takes on a different complexion as the piano is probably already seriously worn and weathered (unless it has been restored or reconditioned at some stage).

Also, if you are not planning on playing it very much, then the question is whether it will deteriorate much more due its placement. While the heating will play havoc with the tuning and internal structure, the sun will work on the finish (and internals too via its heating effect), so perhaps you can choose the least worst option depending on what you actually want the piano for, playing or storing.

Best of luck with the decision/dilemma.

P.

You probably can lock the air inlay and install one on another place (unless it is the cooling device ?)

Older pianos where builmd at times where the air was not as dry as today in the houses.

Hence the wood was not dried as much as for today befor being processed.

SOI it is better to keep them with adequate moisture than nthe opposite (even if modern instruments are better holding now low levels of dryness) That is the cause why older technicians, when I was young, state that pianos must be ideally kept in 50-55-65% air moisture (I have seen even more)

I thought it was due to the noticeable difference between digital hygrometers (often showing more dyness than the hair wire hygrometer)

BTW You could face the piano to the inside of the room, but it is often not excellent for acoustics, may be with a wooden panel (covered or not with adborbing material) behind the soundboard to reflect a bit the tone ?

What do think acoustician(s) of that ?

The air flow of the heater can be reflected

Infinity,
Based on your picture, your situation is hardly the worst I have seen.
If you blocked the heat vent, are there enough other vents in the room to provide adequate (maybe not perfect) heat? If so, then put the piano in front of the blocked vent.

If not, then put a solid barrier in the window (plywood?) up to the height of the piano. You are only trying to block the sunlight from hitting the piano. You wont see the barrier because the piano blocks it. Some drapes would reduce the sunlight that strikes the top of the piano, but allows some light from that window.

BTW, if you block the vent, do a good job of stuffing some insulation in the duct behind the cover. The switch on the cover is not good enough.

Hope this helps.

Well, my piano gets played every day all day by my students and by myself after that. It' s more than just an heirlom. It' s my piano!
The other wall is worse, the widow being even larger and close to the door.
This is a tiny bungalo and these is no other room.
I had a near complete restoration done in 1990 and would like to protect my investment, he only piano I own (which I use to make my living) , and the only memory of my late Father.

I'd agree that blocking the window would work. Block the sunlight off the back of the piano, and do place it a couple inches from the wall as well. It looks like the best of poor options! I'd be more concerned by pumping the air from the vents directly into the piano, which would kill it in a few seasons. Yes, you could leave the upper part of the window open. The important thing is to keep the sunlight off the back of the piano and keep it from contact with the wall and window. Leave a little breathing space behind the piano, so that the circulation is not cut-off; a few inches will suffice.

I had a customer who called me back to retune a piano, and I found that they had moved it since the tuning, and placed it directly onto a heater vent. The poor thing had shifted nearly a quarter step in less than a week. I urged them to move the piano, or block the vent, but.....(sigh). The customer is not ALWAYS right!

I would place the piano in front of the unaltered window and apply a thin radiant heat barrier to its top and exposed back. There are numerous types of these thin barriers available typically with a foil like materaial on the exposed side and a backing of thin bubble wrap or cardboard/kraft paper/insulation on the other. Small standoffs should separate the barrier from the piano to leave a gap of air and to allow the sound to come out the back. Put a deflector on the nearby air vent to divert the air flow away from the piano. I use these barriers, often combined with a small amount of rock wool insulation to protect piano backs from electric heating located on lower walls behind them. It still requires the piano to sit 4-5" away from the wall/heater but it does work well at protecting the piano while still allowing the heating to work in the home.

Silly question probably, as we can't see the rest of the room, but have you considered putting it with its back against the wooden worktop we can see in the foreground? It'll be away from the sun and the air vent.