Preventive Maintenance for the Piano.

    One of the best things you can do to preserve the tuning stability and overall condition of virtually any piano is to keep it in an environment as close as possible to 42% humidity. This keeps to a minimum the expansion and contraction of the soundboard and other wooden components of the piano, helping to prevent tuning instability, cracking and other problems.

The first factor to consider is placement of the piano: away from heat registers, windows, outside doors and uninsulated outside walls. Secondly, unless you're in a mobile home, try to add some humidity in the winter, but don't put a room humidifier too close to the piano, and don't add so much moister that you fog or frost up the windows or damage the walls. Thirdly, try to remove some humidity in the summer through a basement dehumidifier or appropriately-sized air conditioning system.

The ultimate humidity control for a piano is the Piano Life Saver system from Dampp-Chaser Electronics. Dan Eumurian is certified as a Field Expert in Piano Humidity Control, and can advise you as to which components of the system will best protect and preserve your grand or vertical piano. for more information on this system, endorsed by many leading piano manufacturers, or for a brochure on piano maintenance in general, contact Dan at (608) 788-8637, or email him at: hope4you@centurytel.net

A Piano Life Saver system can prevent damage and maintain tuning stability in your piano! Use this chart to see if your piano is exhibiting symptoms of instability or damage.

Click Image The Dampp-Chaser Piano Climate Control System protects your instrument and its more than 9000 parts from the ravages of improper humidity levels. Our system is well recognized in the industry for its effectiveness in stabilizing humidity within a piano thus improving performance quality and extending useful life. Your piano goes out of tune when the humidity in the environment surrounding the piano changes.  The humidity levels in your home environment are controlled to some extent by the temperature.   Generally, an air conditioner will remove some summer humidity, but the drop in humidity, when winter dryness sets in, presents a significant moisture change which will put your piano out of tune. The Piano Life Saver System maintains your piano at an average 42% relative humidity as recommended by major piano manufacturers.  When your piano soundboard is kept at a constant moisture level, shrinking and swelling are minimized

Your piano is made primarily of wood. Key Response As you play your piano, you will notice how responsive the keys are to your touch. The way the keys cause the hammers to strike the piano strings is part of thousands of interconnected wooden parts called the piano action. With high moisture levels in the piano action, the action is sluggish, and the keys seem non-responsive to your touch. Bridge and Soundboard Damage The soundboard is the single largest piece of wood in your piano. It actually vibrates to amplify the sound produced by the strings. The bridges of your piano are joined to the soundboard and support the strings. Moist Conditions As the soundboard absorbs moisture from the air surrounding the piano, it swells, producing an upward bulge. Through the bridge, this puts additional tension on the strings. Now, the pitch is too high in the lower mid-range and treble section. Dry Conditions When the soundboard shrinks and flattens, the tension of strings over the bridge becomes inadequate. The pitch of the mid-range and treble section is now flat. Cracked Soundboard Over time, constant changes in humidity levels, with the corresponding shrinking and swelling of the soundboard, will damage the integrity of the soundboard. You will see this damage in the form of a crack in the soundboard.  Pinblock Damage Moist Conditions The strings of your piano are held tight by the pins in the pinblock. As the pinblock absorbs moisture in periods of high humidity, it swells, crushing the wood fibers against the pin. Dry Conditions In dry periods, the wood shrinks away from the pin, loosening it and causing the string to sag. When this cycle is reapted time after time, the wood fiber surrounding the pin are destroyed and lose their resilience. Damaged Pinblock In this picture, this pinblock (without pins) was removed from a piano during restoration. With continuous swelling and shrinking, the wood could no longer provide the snug fit required to hold pins in place.  String Damage Rusted Strings The strings of your piano are responsible for producing the musical sounds. With exposure to high humidity levels over long periods, strings become rusted and corroded. Rusted Pins At the junction where rusted strings wrap around rusted pins, rusted corrosion forms a hardened bond between the two. Then, during a tuning, when your piano technician turns the pins to stretch the strings, the inflexible rusted string snap at this joint.

Each Piano Life Saver System carries a 5-year guarantee. Since 1947, Dampp-Chaser Corporation has worked to provide the best technology available to protect pianos like yours from the damaging effects of environmental changes. With a Piano Life Saver System installed, out-of-sight, in your piano, you will immediately notice greater tuning stability.  The piano will sound the way it was meant to, day after day. Major Piano manufacturers agree on the benefits of the Piano Life Saver System: Baldwin "Baldwin recommends the Piano Life Saver System as a valuable means to help insure the longevity and stability of our pianos." Bosendorfer "The usage of Piano Life Saver System effectively compensates climatic changes within the piano's environment and is for that reason beneficial in terms of stability and long term reliability." Kawai "Your Piano Life Saver System are the best and most carefully designed systems we have seen." Schimmel "The best way to preserve the value of fine grands and uprights is to automatically regulate the relative humidity right within the instrument..with a System from Dampp-Chaser Corporation." -Nikolaus Schimmel Steinway & Sons "The installation of a Piano Life Saver System can, in our opinion, provide a degree of climate control for the piano which may not be otherwise attainable." Yamaha "...the proper installation and use of a Piano Life Saver System can be beneficial to the stability of the instrument." Copyright © 1999 Dampp-Chaser Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

*GRAND PIANOS
*PIANOS
*ELECTRONIC PIANOS
*PIANO HUMIDITY SYTEMS