Piano and floor board direction

ShiroKuro

We are getting ready to move into a new (to us) house (yay!) and when we had the inspector out, he said something I've not heard before. He said that the piano should be placed perpendicular to the floor joists and that if you place the piano parallel to the joists, the floor doesn't support the piano as well, and it's more likely that the floor would sag.

I thought that was interesting because that means the piano would be parallel to the floor boards (since boards and joists run perpendicular to each other).

Also, it reminded me that generally on these piano forums people usually say "you don't have to worry about the floors in a modern house"... But I didn't get that impression from him...

Anyway, as it happens, I plan to have the piano sitting perpendicular to the joists in the room where the piano go, so that's fortunate I suppose.

navindra

ShiroKuro Congratulations on the new house!

I have to admit, I've worried about this several times. I sometimes wonder if my piano is perfectly horizontal and what would happen if it weren't. Of course, I can't see or feel anything wrong, and I'm happy it hasn't crashed through the floor yet. 😃

I'm happy your piano has found a new home!

MH1963

ShiroKuro
“Perpendicular to the roof trusses” is how a supporting wall in a house is identified, so I can understand the logic there.

I once had an older wood frame home that was not on a slab- it was elevated on blocks, common where I live. I bought a marble pedestal style dining table, and wondered if it would be a problem. I was astonished - previously, when walking through the house, there was a little moving/rattling, esp for people who walk a bit heavy. Once the marble table was in place, it was rock solid, no rattling when walking around anymore. Totally didn’t expect that. The table probably weighed 600-ish pounds.

FrankCox

Consider the weight of the piano and then consider the weight of 3 or four people in the room.

If the piano is going to fall through the floor then it would likely collapse under the weight of the people too.

Simple warping of the floorboards (sans an actual collapse) might be an issue depending on what the floor is made of, I suppose.

ShiroKuro

Frank — right. And I’ve actually used the example of “three or four people, plus a dining room table” as a way to describe the weight of a grand piano. The only difference begins, the piano is there all the time, the people come and go.

I’m not really worried about my piano or the floor in our new house. And as it happens, the direction I’ll be placing the piano means it will be perpendicular to the joists. But it’s interesting to me that I haven’t seen this discussed in this way before.

rogerch

My piano has been sitting in the same place on the hardwood floor of our living room for 24 years (except for 6 months when I sent it off for some refurbishing). The long side of the piano is parallel to the floorboards. As far as I can tell there is no sagging or warping of the floor.

I'm not sure why orientation with respect to joists would make a difference. No matter how the piano is oriented, there is a lot of weight at three different points on the floor. I can see that having the legs positioned on top of joists or at least close to them could make a difference though.

ShiroKuro

If your piano is parallel to the floor boards, then it’s perpendicular to the joists.

As to why it makes a difference, I wish I could remember how it was explained to me (why the piano should be perpendicular to the joists), it made so much sense the way he said it… 😅

David-G

I think the inspector might have meant that if one of the front legs and rear leg were directly above the same joist, so that perhaps 2/3 of the weight of the piano was supported by a single joist, then this might not be ideal.

ShiroKuro

David-G This makes a lot of sense. And of course, if you have the piano perpendicular to the joists, then having two legs of the piano on the same joist would not be possible, and the concern wouldn't be relevant.

But I don't remember him explaining it that way.... I should have wrote it down!

Anyway, this came up because we were standing in the room where I plan to have the piano, and I ask him about the piano's weight and the floor and whether I needed to be concerned. He asked me how I planned to place the piano and when I told him, he said that was good because it meant that the piano would be perpendicular to the joists. And then we had a little discussion about that. He said if I wanted to change the piano's direction, I could put it at an angle and that would work as well, but he said if I wanted to have the piano situated so that it would be parallel to the joists, then I should have a carpenter go into the crawl space and add supports to the joists (sister joists running perpendicular to the joists). But since I'm not going to do that placement, I don't have to worry about it.

Although fortunately, the piano is over a crawl space rather than being over a place whether there's no access to the joists, so if I ever wanted to do that I could.

shawarma_bees

I'm not an expert, but I find it hard to believe that the orientation of a piano wrt. the floor joists would cause any long-term damage.

But congrats on the new home! This market is crazy. I'm relocating out of state for work, and despite having a fairly large budget, we couldn't find a reasonably priced home that would meet our needs. We're now renting a townhouse unit, into which I'll be cramming a 9' concert grand. For it to fit, the tail of the piano will need to extend into a closet... lol

Anyway, congrats. Post photos when you're settled!

ShiroKuro

Shawarma-Bees, re this "I find it hard to believe that the orientation of a piano wrt. the floor joists would cause any long-term damage."
Yeah, I get that, esp. given that we never hear about problems.

But he wasn't saying "if you put the piano parallel to the joists, the piano will fall through the floor."What he was saying was that, depending on the floor, and the piano, it could cause the floor to sag or be a strain, so going with the perpendicular placement would be the better choice.

re this "congrats on the new home! This market is crazy. I'm relocating out of state for work, and despite having a fairly large budget, we couldn't find a reasonably priced home that would meet our needs. We're now renting a townhouse unit, into which I'll be cramming a 9' concert grand. For it to fit, the tail of the piano will need to extend into a closet... lol"

Thank you! We got really lucky! There are very few houses on the market in our price range, and fewer still that meet our needs in terms of piano space and other details. I have continued to watch the market since we closed. I was afraid that something better would come up and I would be disappointed, but as it happens, nothing has come up in our price range at all. it's kind of amazing how little inventory there is.

Re your situation, I'm really sorry! That sounds very challenging. But on the bright side, you can live in the town and get a better idea of where you'd like to move. That's what we did, we moved here last summer and tried to buy then but, besides the tight market, it was impossible to coordinate house hunting from several states away. After living here for six months, we felt more confident about where we wanted to live, and we started searching in earnest in January.

When will you move your piano?

shawarma_bees

ShiroKuro When will you move your piano?

I'm actually just now in the process of buying one. Decided on a rebuilt D, which is still a few months away from being completed. In the meantime, the rebuilder is sending us a gorgeous Blüthner model 1 I played in their show room. Once the rebuild is complete, we'll exchange it. The Blüthner should be arriving in the next week or so!

ShiroKuro

Oh wow that's super exciting! Def share photos!!!

pseudonym58

We have our 5'8 Yamaha C2 at an angle (mostly to set it away from the window a bit) as you can see from the picture, complete with dog bed. The small rug underneath the piano gives you an idea of the angle. I have not measured offsets or anything like that, but I'm not particularly worried. Houses (especially wooden frame houses) will settle and shift slightly over time no matter what.

iternabe

When we had our house built, we learned that the floor board's direction has nothing to do with joist direction, because we only decided on how to lay the floor boards after the framing was done. That being said, there is the subfloor (large sheet of OSB or plywood 3/4 inch thick) that is being fastened to the joist. No matter where you put a point load, the subfloor is distributing the load to multiple joists.

ShiroKuro

Internabe, thanks for that explanation! I forgot about the subfloor.

In any case, I think I'll be putting my piano at an angle, so each leg is going to be over (or near) a different joist. I'm sure it will be fine, this house feels very solid!!

pseudonym58, that's a lovely piano space, and a lovely piano! (Of course I'm biased, since we have the same make/model! 😃

pseudonym58

@ShiroKuro Incidentally, the piano has a satin finish (I chose it for other reasons, of course!), and it shows far more fingerprints than my previous glossy piano. I have to use a very slightly dampened cloth to remove them. A bit of a nuisance.

Pallas

pseudonym58 I'm really glad to know that, thank you. I had no idea. More fingerprints would bug the heck out of me.

ShiroKuro

Yes, I've heard that the satin finish can be harder to look after, but they are very pretty! When I was piano shopping, I was buying used so I considered both finishes, but it just so happened that the one I like the most was the glossy kind.

JohnCW

First, it depends if its a grand or upright. With a grand the key consideration is what is the support under each of the 3 contact points. For an upright, it would certainly be preferable for the weight at each end to be sitting on different floor joices than the full load be carried by the same ones. So yes, the inspectors advice is solid.

Will a grand make a floor sag. Mine certainly has done it to a hardware floor that was the best part of 100 years old prior to the piano being placed on it. Not a lot and nothing to freak out about, but it certainly has a dip now if you stick a straight edge across it. An additional pier or two should have been constructed under the floor to support that constant weight in one area for which the floor was never designed. Along the walls won't sink because they are on full length strip footings, but away from the walls the floor is supported by widely spaced brick piers on relatively shallow footings. It is the constant weight on the pier footings sitting on clay that has allowed it to sink down.