Understanding Humidity Changes and Your Piano
As a piano technician, one of the frequent questions I get from piano owners is about how to take care of the piano better. There are several ways to do so and today I would like to specifically talk about how humidity affects the piano. Materials we can find in the piano consist of metal, felt, wool and wood. Changes in the humidity can affect all of these things that is why it is important to keep the piano in a controlled environment.
With the changes in humidity, there are several ways the piano might be impacted. The most immediate change people notice is in the pitch of the piano. Sometimes you may notice the keys feel weird when they feel heavy to the touch or sometimes stick down in high humidity, other times you may notice there are rattles or clicks when the keys are played with low humidity.
Permanent damage may be caused when the piano goes through extreme humidity changes where parts swell and shrink rapidly, this may cause wooden parts to have large cracks in the piano and may also make the piano lose its ability to hold its tune. Parts that are made of metal may start to corrode. With strings and pins becoming rusted, it heavily affects how technicians service the piano. These severe problems will not only negatively affect the value of the piano, the repair cost often is more than just buying a new piano.
The solution to many of these problems are repairs and making adjustments. However, we often neglect the source of them, which is the humidity. It will take more effort to take good care of an instrument that has a complex system like the piano. The most ideal humidity level is one that never changes, unfortunately we can't control the weather so instead I'd advice piano owners to try and maintain it to be as consistent as possible,
The ideal humidity level I would suggest for a piano is between 40% - 45%. You may be able to have something installed in the room with your piano to try and achieve this. It also helps that your piano is not placed close to a door or window, air vents that regulate the temperature of the house may also impact the piano in some ways. There are also humidity control system that can be installed into the piano that regulates the humidity of the piano.
