DIY piano climate control?

Asked by rhodes54 (415

) January 6th, 2010

I’m moving my upright piano into a recently converted garage space. The door frequently gets left open in the summer but i’m trying to get better at that.

There is an A.C. window unit and a small gas space heater. I really don’t want to invest in a $700 Dampp-Chaser (maybe when i finally get my Yamaha C7), so is there some compelling reason I couldn’t just place a couple of hygrometers inside and regulate the RH with THIS and THIS

I’m in central TX, btw. Mild winters, hot summers. Average yearly RH is 82% am and 59% pm

Thanks yall

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3 Answers

Sorry. Those won’t work for you. They are for much smaller volumes with virtually no airflow. The Boveda is for cigar humidors. Very small indeed. They would either be saturated or dry within a day. Save your money.
How tight a band are you trying to keep? I assume you have either a RH meter or gauge already.
A plug-in dehumidifier might be enough in the summer and bucket of water in front of the space heater might take care of you in the winter.

LuckyGuy (43867

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thanks for response. I was thinking those items would go on the INSIDE the piano, a mini-environment as it were. Keeping it consistent is the important thing, somewhere around 55 RH +\-5%

rhodes54 (415

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Yes, if you put a glass or two of water beside the sound board, inside the piano, that will help to keep the humidity up when needed; a dehumidifier would definitely help when the climate is too damp, though be careful to not dry things out too much—- you don’t want to risk having the sound board crack. If things are too humid, your piano will go out of tune easily, which is easier to deal with than if you keep the air too dry.

Trissinger (638

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