Piano Store Environmental Conditions?

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adamjohnson
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Piano Store Environmental Conditions?

Post by adamjohnson »

Hi,

I always see a lot of posts about keeping a piano within certain temperatures and humidities in this forum. I had a question about dealer show rooms. I went to a piano store today to try out some pianos. The store I went to is a well known, relatively large piano store in our local area.

When I went into one of the larger back rooms I noticed the doors wide open and fans blowing in air from the outside. The weather today is in the 90's and the humidity is probably in the 20s. Does it cause harm to the pianos to be in conditions like this?

The weather is not always like this here but there are long stretches of low humidity and high temperature in our area over the course of the year. So if a piano sits on the floor it could be exposed to a lot of variation. Just wondering how this affects the pianos especially if you're expecting a new piano from a store like this?
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HullandHellandHalifax
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Re: Piano Store Environmental Conditions?

Post by HullandHellandHalifax »

Hi Adam,
I am no expert in this field but I do know that piano's are built to work within certain temperatures and certain levels of humidity, I also know that people's houses are not always the same as in the showrooms and that after buying a piano it can take a reasonable amount of time to acclimatise, but once acclimatised it wants that to be it's regular atmosphere and certainly doesn't like extreme changes week by week or even month by month.
Harmoniums and piano's used to be made specifically for the tropics to be able to stand high temperatures and high levels of humidity, they used different sorts of wood to be able to withstand those conditions. So you can take it that for pianos in your area they won't be set up for tropical use but will expect a drier atmosphere, but not too dry that will kill most pianos, I have seen far too many pianos placed between central heating radiators that completely ruined the piano within a few months.
So your observation about the showroom would lead me to believe that if the normal levels of humidity are on the low side what they were doing was probably a good thing but asking their advice about the humidity question will be very important, particularly if the pianos are not manufactured in your area but from the Far East.
hope this helps in some small way.
regards
Brian
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