I thought Iā€™d put some of the thoughts and learnings Iā€™ve had on the topic of humidity control to paper, in the hopes that it benefits other piano owners/buyers, helps dispel any confusion, and generally spurs discussion. And as always, Iā€™m sure thereā€™s no 100% right answer, so Iā€™m hoping to learn more this space, too.

1. What is humidity and humidity control?
Humidity is amount of water vapor in the air. Air isnā€™t just nitrogen and oxygen, it can hold significant amounts of water (think fog or rainclouds), and the amount of humidity, as measured by ā€œ%RH,ā€ means how much water is in the air as a percentage of the amount the water the air CAN hold to become fully saturated in its present condition. Itā€™s ā€œrelative humidityā€ because at given conditions, e.g., higher or lower temperature, air can hold more or less water, so the %RH will rise or fall with temperature, even if the absolute amount of water is the same.

2. Why is important for pianos?
To a large degree, acoustic pianos are made of wood. The case, the rim, the keys and action, and very importantly, the soundboard. Wood is at its heart a water retention and delivery mechanism for plants, so it is very sensitive to changes in humidity. Higher humidity causes the wood to absorb water and expand. Lower humidity causes it to release water and contract, and over time and many cycles of expansion and contraction, the joints start to loosen, glued parts start separating, and the wood itself begins to warp and crack. Even in the short term, changes in humidity can affect the fine tuning stability of a piano, and can cause the action to feel loose, or sticky/sluggish.

So, keeping a consistent, if not constant humidity, and reducing drastic swings in humidity, helps preserve the short-term performance and the long-term life of your piano.

3. Whatā€™s the best humidity to keep my piano?
Most piano makers recommend maintaining a relative humidity level between 40-60% year-round, e.g., Steinway, Bosendorfer. Yamaha in some literature says between 40-45%, in others 50-60%. Kawai claims 45% as ideal, and 35%-70% as an acceptable range. So, not every maker agrees to a tee, but you can see a general trend.

From this, itā€™s probably fine to aim for a range of 40-50% if possible, depending on your local conditions (some places are dry all the time, some are perennially humid, and others have mild or extreme swings between seasons).

If itā€™s impossible or impractical to keep a piano within a precise range, the next-best thing is probably to minimize the widest swings between highest and lowest humidity.

  1. How do I determine humidity?
    A simple hygrometer is all you need. Many are available online for less than $10, even fancy wireless ones that communicate with your smartphone and let you record and track long-range results. Hereā€™s a generic amazon search: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=hygrometer

5. What about temperature control?
While you want to avoid extreme temperatures and drastic swings, one thing to keep in mind is how temperature affects the %RH that the air can hold. Warmer air holds more water, so the %RH will DROP as the temperature rises. Colder air doesnā€™t hold as much, so it becomes saturated faster and the %RH measurement will be higher for the same given water in the air.

Also note that a lot of room temperature control systems like air conditioning, furnaces, and fireplaces, can directly affect the humidity as well. AC systems and fireplaces both dry out the air, reducing RH.

6. What can I do to control humidity?
If you live in a low-humidity environment, you can use a humidifier. If you live in a high-humidity environment, youā€™ll want a dehumidifier. There are some units that will do both, depending on a target humidity.

These are available as stand-alone units, integrated units that can be built into your residenceā€™s plumbing and air systems, or dedicated piano-units.

FAQ

1. Whole house, or standalone?
Generally speaking, whole-house units probably do the best job in the gentlest way. But they tend to be expensive and work-intensive to install (perhaps requiring permitting), and you may not be able to easily fine-tune between rooms of the entire residence.

Standalone units are effective, but must be sized appropriately for your room. A 20-30L dehumidifier is probably sufficient for a smaller music room, while a larger open floorplan room may need a 50L unit. It also depends on how much of a change you need to make. Note that dehumidifiers also tend to be very noisy (regardless of what the manufacturer says), and unless integrated with your plumbing, humidifiers need to be regularly filled, and dehumidifiers regularly emptied of water.

2. How fast does the humidity in the air change?
Assuming the properly-sized unit, almost instantly. My piano hygrometers start registering a change in %RH within 15-30 seconds of a 50L standalone dehumidifier starting up 16ft away in an unenclosed, open floorplan room. In my house, it typically takes 15 minutes to drop the humidity at the piano by 3%.

3. What if I canā€™t control the humidity precisely?
In some areas or environments, itā€™s likely impractical or impossible to perfectly control humidity, or raise or lower it by such an amount to reach the ā€œidealā€ state. In these cases, your best bet is to aim to reduce the extremes as much as possible - bring it down from 85 to 70, or get to 30 rather than 20, if you can do so consistently and gently. If you canā€™t move the humidity appreciably, do what you can to keep it consistent (presumably, a piano spending its live at constant 85% humidity is going to be better off than one swinging between 40 and 80 regularly).

You can also look to different methods of maintaining humidity. For those who find constantly running. Whole-house or standalone climate controls system untenable or wasteful, a localized piano-based system like the Piano Life Saver may be an option. I donā€™t have any experience with this, but itā€™s supposed to be a way to keep the critical parts of the piano at a steady humidity, regardless of the state of the rest of the room/house.

4. Are aerosol humidifiers dangerous?
The EPA has a warning about ā€œultrasonicā€ and ā€œimpeller/cool mistā€ humidifiers. The Mayo Clinic does too, as do some other authoritative sources. In a nutshell, these humidifiers use a standing tank of water, and aerosolize the water to pump up into the air. People generally arenā€™t good about cleaning these water tanks (especially if you have to fill it 1-2x a day every day or so), and they end up pumping the mold, fungi and bacteria that can grow in those tanks, up into the air. There are other types of humidifiers that are better with this (steam and evaporator humidifiers).

5. Do I need both a humidifier and a dehumidifier?
This depends on your environment, of course. My house typically seems humidity levels between 40-70%, and on a few days a years it may drop into the mid to high 30s. I donā€™t bother with a humidifier, and just have a dehumidifier set up to keep the piano between 45-47%RH. Some people may live in perennially dry or wet environments, or ones that regularly swing between 10-90% depending on the season.

6. How accurate are consumer grade hygrometers? Do they need to be calibrated?
I've tested about a dozen ā€œcheapā€™ hygrometers, and built a few manual sensors using commonly-available standalone components such as the DHT11, Bosch BME280 and Sensirion SHT-45. Iā€™ve calibrated many of them with supersaturated solutions of NaCL (table salt) 50 75%RH, MgCl to 33% RH, and potassium chloride to 43%RH. And generally, theyā€™re fine. You may hear that theyā€™re inaccurate, or that theyā€™re only accurate within a narrow range, and while I have found some outliers, overall Iā€™ve found most consumer-grade hygrometers are more than good enough, usually staying within 2-3% RH of each other across a broad range of humidity. My reference sensor is the SHT-45, and the datasheet claims an operating range of 0-100% RH, +/- 1.0%RH between 20-70%, and max deviation of 3%RH between 90-100%.

Thatā€™s more than accurate enough for piano tracking.

Here's a recent reading from a few of my hygrometers (you can ignore the teal spikes, I'm running a couple of experiments on a new unit):. These are all within 1-2% of each other.

7. Where do I put the hygrometer?
Anywhere on the piano is fine. Just because they are so cheap and small, I have multiple units on the piano - one with a digital display on plate, another below the action, and one at the back of the beams under the soundboard. The dehumidifier has its own humidistat across the room. They all track each other to within a few %RH, and more importantly, move up and down consistently depending on the state of the AC and dehumidifier.

8. Where should I place the humidifier or dehumidifier?
Itā€™s generally recommended to avoid putting the piano DIRECTLY in line of fire of a humidifier or dehumidifier, or any fan or cooling vents. I think this is especially important for humidifiers, that spray water up into the air (they can often pool/puddle a few feet away). Iā€™ve found that changes in humidity propagate across a room fairly quickly, in less than a minute. So if you can place your humidifier in the room across from the piano, that may be good enough, and it will definitely help keep changes gentle and graduated.

9. What about digital pianos?
Most digital pianos donā€™t use a lot of wood, if any at all, and are for all intents and purposes impervious to the effects of humidity. There are felts and foams that can moderately swell and shrink, and some DPs have wooden keys or action parts, or even wooden cases/rims/soundboards. But given their relatively shorter lifecycles compared to an acoustic that can function as an instrument for 30, 50, or even 100 years, itā€™s typically not a huge concern. I've read reports that some wooden-key DP owners experience sluggish/stuck keys, as the wood around the balance pin can swell. But this can usually be address by minor regulation.

So, thatā€™s about what I have. Any thoughts/questions/corrections?

    @Gombessa Great post!

    Air conditioner when run in cooling mode will remove moisture in the air and reduce humidity. Humidity affects human feeling of hot even more than temperature. My HVAC installer said itā€˜s important to select AC unit properly sized for the space. If cooling power is too much, the AC will not run long enough to reduce humidity, or youā€™ll have to set the target temperature really low to feel cool.

    Smart thermostat like Ecobee has humidity sensor built in. There are also 3rd party smart humidity sensors (my favorite is Aqara). I have a smart home setup based on Home Assistant, and I made a routine that if humidity rises above 60% the AC will be turned on regardless of current temperature and run until humidity falls back to normal.

    Fantastic post! As always I'm impressed by how thorough you are in figuring out all the details of anything that piques your interest!

    One statement that is not consistent with my experience:

    Gombessa AC systems and fireplaces both dry out the air, reducing RH.

    To me "AC" means air conditioning which means make my house colder. My AC system raises the RH compared to the outside. I'm fortunate to live in a piano friendly climate that is dry and hot in the summer and colder and wetter in the winter. In the summer the AC increases the RH compared to the outside and in the winter the heat decreases the RH compared to the outside with the result that RH is always between about 40 and 50 when measured from inside my piano.

    Maybe when you wrote "AC systems" you meant heat, which I would agree with! Or maybe my experience is not representative of what happens in other climates.

    Either way thanks for the great write-up! I'm always glad to be the beneficiary of your deep dives and the subsequent great write-ups!

      @rogerch where do you live? In the US, AC commonly refers to cooling. There may be people who use it to refer to heating but they are using it mistakenly, because the complete term HVAC is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

      Since becoming a piano owner, I have lived in Japan and in the U.S. Midwest (including the northern Midwest, central Midwest, and southern Midwest) and in the U.S. Southeast. In Japan, humidity control was challenging but made do-able by the very efficient and capable mini-splits that are so common in most houses.

      In US, in the last house we owned, we replaced the HVAC. And in the last rental house we lived in, we had a hell of a time controlling the RH. So Iā€™ve spent a lot of time reading about HVACs, monitoring my own systems, and also talking to HVAC installers.

      So my understanding is specific to the regions Iā€™ve lived in of course, but with that caveat in mind, in my understanding, itā€™s both common knowledge as well as my direct experience that AC, as in cooling, lowers the RH.

      Unless thereā€™s something wrong with the system or the house. Which is not a minor issue, and not that uncommon. (Our last rental house fits in this category and is one of the reasons I was in a hurry to move and one of the reasons Iā€™m so happy that the house we just bought has such a good HVAC).

      So with regard to the system, itā€™s also common knowledge among HVAC installers that an oversized system can often result in the AC portion not working as intended, such that when the AC is on, the indoor RH actually increases.

      So AC (cooling) resulting in an increase in humidity (an increase to problematic levels, that is) usually means either that the system is not well-suited to the house, or else that thereā€™s some moisture problem in the house. In the first house we owned, we lived in the southeast where it was hot and humid in the summer and cold and damp in the winter. And the house was about 60 years old. So after I upgraded from an acoustic upright to a grand, I replaced the HVAC, had the crawl space encapsulated and installed a whole house dehumidifier. I had hygrometers all over the house and monitored it closely and there was a big improvement.

      In our last rental house (which we just moved out of two months ago), there were problems with the house and the system. The system was oversized, and Iā€™m pretty sure that the crawl space had an unmitigated water problem so it was always damp. Because it wasnā€™t my house, I couldnā€™t do anything about either of those problems, but if I were the home owner, I would have done what I did in our last house ā€” replaced the HVAC and had the crawl space encapsulated. I would bet that this would solve the problem, but if it didnā€™t, I would have then had a whole house dehumidifier installed.

      In our new house, which is only about 30 years old, the previous owner had the crawl space encapsulated, and the basement is treated (i.e. in the finished parts of the basement, there are HVAC ducts and vents and returns). Because itā€™s a newer house then previous house i owned and the previous rentals i lived in, the windows are better and the insulation is better, and the HVAC is well-suited to the house. So on the main level, humidity control has not been a problem, and when the AC is running, the RH drops in all rooms where I have hygrometers.

      Ok, sorry, Iā€™ve gone on much too long here! šŸ˜… Itā€™s just that i have spent a lot of time and effort ā€” and money ā€”working on humidity control ā€¦ šŸ˜ƒ

      So, back to you @rogerch what area of the world are you in? Iā€™m guessing if itā€™s the U.S., maybe youā€™re in the southwest? Also I notice that you wrote that your RH goes up to maybe 40 or 50, I donā€™t think thatā€™s a problematic increase and so I wouldnā€™t say it means your hvac is oversized or something. In the last rental we lived in, the one with the problems, with the AC on, the RH would jump up to 75% or 80% ā€” so I started using a free-standing dehumidifier. It was awful! (And we donā€™t even have to talk about how unpleasant it is to have a free-standing dehumidifier going 24 hours a day in your living roomā€¦ nothing like the noise of a jet engine to make your house cozyā€¦)

        navindra why is it the relative humidity that's important as opposed to the absolute humidity?

        Ooh good questionā€¦ I do think absolute humidity is important, as in, itā€™s not completely irrelevant.

        But my understanding is that moisture moves around (for lack of a better term), and itā€™s RH that determines how it movesā€¦ if the RH is high, itā€™s easier for moisture to ā€œmove intoā€ the piano ā€¦ i.e., be absorbed by the wood and cause the wood in the piano to swell (and we all know why thatā€™s bad).

        If the RH is low, itā€™s easier for moisture to ā€œmove out ofā€ the piano, i.e., for the wood to dry out, which causes the wood to shrink and in worse cases, crack.

        When the RH is around 40-50%, thatā€™s when moisture moves to or from the wood the least.

        Itā€™s different for other materials (say, fabric for example). So I think this is why itā€™s RH that matters, not just absolute humidity. Because as the temps go up and down, and the RH moves accordingly, it changes the ability of the moisture (thatā€™s already there, the absolute humidity) to move into and out of materials in the room.

        Hereā€™s another interesting (and I believe relevant) tidbitā€¦ in the paperwork for my Venta humidifier (note, not a de-humidifier), it explains that when you first turn on the unit and start putting more moisture into the air, the first thing that happens is that soft materials in the room soak up that moisture ā€” curtains, plush furniture, carpeting. During this time, hygrometers may show little or no increase in RH. But once these items have soaked up enough moisture, then the additional moisture coming from the humidifier starts to stay in the air more and thatā€™s when youā€™ll start to see the RH go up on your hygrometer.

        So thereā€™s probably a better, more technically accurate way to explain why itā€™s RH that matters, but hopefully this helps a little bitā€¦

          Oh, one more thing to add (sorry for posting so much, thereā€™s nothing I love more than a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast and posting on Piano Tellā€¦ šŸ˜…

          So, back to the question of why an AC causes a drop in RH.

          Normally ā€” say, outside in the open air ā€” if the temps drop, the RH increases and if the temps rise, the RH decreases. This is because cooler air can ā€˜holdā€™ less moisture, and hotter air can hold more moisture. Thatā€™s why many climates are more humid in the summer and less in the winter. (But not deserts, I donā€™t know anything about deserts and someone else can chime in on that matter).

          So you would think that AC, i.e., cooling the air, should cause the RH to rise.

          But the important point is that with an HVAC, the cooling is artificial ā€” first, warm air is blown across a cooling coil (with refrigerant) and then the air is moved around the house by artificial means ā€” the air handler, which is like a massive fan.

          Any kind of movement of air can contribute to a drying effect, hence the AC causing a (usually beneficial) drop in humidity even though the temp dropping would otherwise cause a rise in humidity.

          In a desert climate, this is different because itā€™s so much drier outside and I donā€™t know how the parameters are different. (Itā€™s also why I am super curious about whether @rogerch is in a desert or desert-like climate)

          With regard to heating, itā€™s already less humid, and on top of the air being moved around by the air handler (the fan) the air is also being heated. So even though an increase in temps outside lead to an increase in overall RH, indoors with the heat on, it leads to an overall decrease in RH because the air is being in both artificially warmed, and artificially moved around ā€” both of which result in a drop in RH.

          So basically, HVAC systems, whether in heating or cooling mode, usually result in a drop in humidity. Itā€™s just that in the summer, this is usually beneficial for pianos because the starting point is a higher RH. But in the winter, the starting point is already a lower RH, so usually the drop in RH caused by heating is bad for pianos.

          So, in conclusion (you all thought Iā€™d never finish!) absolute humidity is important and relevant, but itā€™s relative humidity that has the more direct impact in the piano.

            ShiroKuro I live near Sacramento, California.

            After reading your post I did some additional research and I now understand that air conditioning units are also de-humidifiers! Thanks for pointing that out! It makes sense because our air conditioning system produces water.

            In my house I observe higher relative humidity inside than outside in the summer, which I always attributed to the cooling of the air by the AC. Maybe cooling the air from our high summer temperatures down to our indoor temperature more than compensates from the dehumidifying action of the air conditioner. Or something else is going on. Whatever is going on it's great for the piano!

            @rogerch ahh, I have never even visited California, let alone lived there, but I'm guessing the summers are maybe much drier there? Interesting!!

              Well that makes sense. And so of course some of what i wrote then might not apply to your region.

              I love this topic.
              My easy version: if it's too dry the wood will crack. If it's too wet the strings will rust. šŸ˜†

                navindra One very basic thing I didn't understand ā€” why is it the relative humidity that's important as opposed to the absolute humidity?

                I'm far from an expert on this, but I think @ShiroKuro hit the nail on the head.

                ShiroKuro If the RH is low, itā€™s easier for moisture to ā€œmove out ofā€ the piano, i.e., for the wood to dry out, which causes the wood to shrink and in worse cases, crack.

                This right here. Very cold air holds more moisture, so if you have 15 "units" of moisture in the air, in cold air it would be only 10% RH because the air can absorb more, but in hot air it would be 80% RH, because relatively, the air is almost at saturation.

                This is important because the water moves in and out of the air, and in and out of things in contact with the air, depending on the moisture level between them - they are always seeking equilibrium.

                So seasoned wood for pianos is typically around 40-50% RH. If the ambient air is lower RH, the air can hold more, and thus wicks moisture out of the wood, drying it. If the ambient air is higher RH, the lower concentration of moisture is now in the wood, and the wood draws the excess moisture from the air into itself. This is all irrespective of the actual amount of moisture in the air, it's all about concentrations seeking equilibrium.

                That's why you can use a PLS with a heat bar to change the RH under the soundboard - if the RH in the air is low, the heater turns on, warms up the air, and that air can no longer hold as much water, so the relative humidity increases, and now the air is less likely to need to pull water out of the wood in the piano.

                At least, thinking about it that way makes it easier for me to understand.

                  Rubens My easy version: if it's too dry the wood will crack. If it's too wet the strings will rust.

                  And even before the strings rust, my understanding is because the wood shrinks when it's dry, and swells when it's wet, over time this will cause the wood to warp, it will cause joints to loosen, and it will cause glue to fail and lamination to separate. And yes, enough cycles and the wood will crack when dry. This shrink/swell "breathing" is the slow death that is the fate of every wooden acoustic piano.

                  Controlling the humidity minimizes this movement, and prolongs the steady-state life of the instrument!

                  Would the first sign of bad humidity management be the acoustic piano having a hard time maintain tune?

                    Rubens if it's too dry the wood will crack. If it's too wet the strings will rust.

                    Yep! this is the most important part, and why we all make ourselves crazy trying to get our indoor climates stable and piano-friendly!

                    I live in Montreal, Canada, where the indoors are dry in the winter and wet in the summers. In addition to humidifiers (during the winters) and dehumidifiers (during the summer), another thing that helps is to keep the indoor temperature on the cold side (less heating) in the winter and on the hot side (less AC) in the summer! I think this is the easy/stupid version of what @ShiroKuro said earlier, but it works for me. My grand piano has amazing tuning stability.

                      ShiroKuro But the important point is that with an HVAC, the cooling is artificial ā€” first, warm air is blown across a cooling coil (with refrigerant) and then the air is moved around the house by artificial means ā€” the air handler, which is like a massive fan.

                      This is such a good point. ACs, heat pumps, refrigerators and most of the refrigerant-coil dehumidifiers are all ultimately the same device, what differs is which direction it runs, and where the "waste heat" is placed. The AC runs ambient air over cold coils to cool the air down, and that immediately causes condensation on the surface of the coils (like filling a glass with ice and leaving it in a warm room). For an AC, that is byproduct waste water and there's usually a drip line to get rid of it. A dehumidifier works the same way, but the entire point is to draw water out of the air, and the "waste" product in this case is heat, because it's a heat pump and the heat has to go somewhere. In an AC, that waste heat is also produced, but it's re-directed outside using a big fan. For a dehumidifier, they just pump the warm, now dry air, out into the room.

                      rogerch

                      Thank you @rogerch! I might be off on this point, and different ACs may work in different ways. I think ShiroKuro explained it well--*although an AC, or air conditioner (yes, I'm thinking of the ones that cool down your house) cools down the air, meaning it can now hold less water and raising the RH, (this causes the RH to rise given the same amount of moisture in the room), it must furst it pass air over a cold coil, which causes condensation out of the air onto the coil (thus reducing the moisture in the air). So it could net out differently depending on efficiency, how long the AC runs, etc.

                      But if you have an AC that draws in outside air, or one that is oversized and cools down the room very quickly, you could end up in a situation where higher RH air ends up replacing the warm air in your house. I'm sure a number of other things are possible too, depending on the variety of AC/heat pump setups that exist.

                      In my house, whenever the AC is on, the RH drops precipitously, and my dehumidifer never turns on.

                      *edited to correct vapor capacity

                      iternabe

                      I think so. I don't have any direct experience with this, but it's been reported often that humidity swings cause tuning instability (and is one of the selling points of the Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver, which is a dedicated humidity control system). Presumably you get all kinds of flex/swell/shrinkage in the soundboard, bridge, pinblock and case/rim that cause this to happen.