Low humidity

ShiroKuro

Ugh, we’re having a cold snap and the indoor humidity in the piano room has dropped to just below 30%. I have a humidifier running in there, but this space is too open so it’s hard to isolate the humidifier. I’m wondering if there’s anything else I can do… I’d rather have it above 30%, but if I can at least keep it above 25% it should be ok.

It’s supposed to warm up a bit tomorrow, then after Friday there is supposed to be another stretch of extra cold nights for maybe 7 days.

keff

ShiroKuro I am wondering if I have remembered correctly that you have a piano lifesaver or something similar ? Are you able to dry your clothes washing somewhere near the piano?

twocats

ShiroKuro buckets/dishes of water left out in the piano room?

TC3

I have an Aprilaire installed directly into my HVAC unit. Highly recommended!

ShiroKuro

@keff yes, I have a piano lifesaver, thankfully! So the tuning stability is excellent, which is a good sign, but the whole room is so dry, it makes me nervous.

And @keff @Stub and @twocats , yeah, I should probably hang up a bunch of damp towels in there.

TC3 we may have to consider that... but our HVAC system is kind of old and I was hoping to just leave it until we get new system... I would hate to install something that then couldn't be reused with a new system

pseudonym58 Yikes, that sounds like a challenging set up! If you get a hygrometer, you'll probably have a heart attack 😅

pseudonym58

Unfortunately, due to the layout of our home, in the room where we have our piano, we also have a wood stove insert in the fireplace. That, combined with the forced hot air heating, is probably about as bad as you can get! That said, we do have a lifesaver device on the piano, which I'm sure makes a difference in the microclimate right next to the soundboard. Also, whenever we have a fire in the wood stove, we always keep a pan of water evaporating on top. If the temperature goes down below 20 F° outside, I also place a vaporizer in the area.
I don't have a hygrometer in the room, and I'm sure if I did the results would be distressing at times. So far, no visible cracks in the soundboard.

Stub

Outside of installing a whole house humidifier (which can't happen soon enough to help your immediate problem), putting damp towels on clothes drying racks near the piano is about the only other way to add the humidity your stand-alone humidifier can't provide. I use them. They are ugly and I remove them when we have company, but they do provide a goodly amount of additional moisture to the air near the piano.

TC3

ShiroKuro but our HVAC system is kind of old and I was hoping to just leave it until we get new system... I would hate to install something that then couldn't be reused with a new system

I'm not sure but you might be able to have it switched over to the new one. Might be worth asking your local Home Depot associate!

ShiroKuro

We are something like 5 days into a super dramatic cold snap… according to the weather report, it will be Monday before temps return to more normal winter temps for this region. We have wet towels hanging near the piano, and I have the Venta going in there… and other than that, just watching the hygrometer go back and forth from 22% to 28%.

😬

keff

ShiroKuro The cold weather in USA has been mentioned on UK news. Here the outside temperature is about 8 deg C and the humidity in the room with the piano is 40%, although the hygrometer may not be accurate. We had one day in early January when inside humidity fell to 22-24% and at that point I introduced one wet towel to cover a radiator.

ShiroKuro

keff about 8 deg C

This morning at 6am, the outside temp was -21 C !!! And the hygrometer by the piano read 22% 🙁

My piano sounded "fine" last night during practice, but I feel like the hammers sound "harder" because of the drop in humidity, and there's something about the tuning that is just a little bit off. I expect it to return to sounding better when the indoor humidity goes back to about 35% 🤞

raagamuffin

I'm also a bit concerned.. I noticed some tuning deviation (though the piano was tuned last in September, so it's due) that I'll blame on humidity. I have a whole house humidifier, but its sensor is on the upper floor which is at 39%. The lower floor where the piano is located tends to be a few percentage points lower. Lets hope for the best 🙂

keff

ShiroKuro This morning at 6am, the outside temp was -21 C !!!

Gosh, I have never experienced temperatures that low (I'm discounting the times I worked with liquid nitrogen or on one occasion liquid helium). Being on the west coast of the UK helps with our local climate.

Hope it warms up soon.

ShiroKuro

And -21 C doesn't include the impact of the wind chill. So it's not great. I did my undergrad and graduate school in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and that kind of weather is very common up there. Down where I am now (lower midwestern) US) it rarely (never?) is this cold!

keff

ShiroKuro I did my undergrad and graduate school in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and that kind of weather is very common up there.

I saw a new dental surgeon today and discovered that we both did undergrad courses at the University of Sheffield and also agreed that in winter it was the coldest place in England. For my post-grad work I was seconded to a laboratory near to Oxford which did not seem quite so bad.

KevinM

keff I've lived in both Oxford and Sheffield Keff. I've experienced a couple of (for the UK) some proper cold spells in Oxford that I never did in Sheffield.

Where I live now, Penarth just South of Cardiff and close to the coast I thought would be warmer in winter, but at the end of the cold spell in mid January our local lakes started freezing over. I really didn't expect that here.

navindra

+1! The tuning on my pianos are quite horrible now with this US cold snap.

Seeker

navindra Things are a bit better in my studio. With 2 Ventas running about 4 gallons of water a day, humidity has been around 30%. DampChaser buckets need refill at 4 days instead of 2 weeks. The Bechstein has slipped 6 cents; the Steinert 4 cents, but both remain "in tune".

ShiroKuro

My piano room seems to be sitting at 22% - 24%… 😑

ShiroKuro

Seeker I probably should get a second Venta.... -_-

Seeker

ShiroKuro I probably should get a second Venta....

Well, here's one on eBay that looks promising https://www.ebay.com/itm/366164988016?itmmeta=01KGAETXF61V1CNXFCQD6S550W&hash=item5541225070:g:KJIAAeSweW9pfinV&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA4Nj3NPLDar04SUwbC%2B%2By9TsvUD1ZXI8o4uUGe%2BsEnqfGSyp7%2FjdpuzKB19yzeept6su%2FmoR0CqZj9aW2mJ27PqMTT%2FapiMe%2FYELRrp9ZwJ8i%2B2e%2B2f6%2BGaA5knAib3RfulA69wUbZn6cMG2qtq1zVGvJSjvCneLz972if8iVs128OfNjX4eI1DU5tlRL70GccPWFbPUijZntHGfHeRSBUDUqetHc78hXwbrkDTOqZiCto3qJU3vM6KAe0fihajgxW6A6taMq563KLQdZRtN9dyJAqBnaofI7wTUIS%2FOWmQul%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR97X686CZw

Searching for "Venta Humidifier" on Facebook Marketplace is more difficult, because "venta" means "sell" in Spanish. I couldn't figure out an easy way to exclude things, but I'm sure that could be done too.

I bought one of my Ventas new; the other was (I think) $70 off FB Marketplace. That one needed a thorough cleaning, and once I got through that, it's worked perfectly at about a 70% reduction off the price of a new one. As always, YMMV.