Be very careful about moving that piano from VA to NM. The change in humidity is going to be quite a shock. I would ship it in a climate controlled truck and have the room it is destined for set for the humidity it is accustomed to, and then very grandually reduce the humidity to what is reasonable to maintain in your new climate. But whatever you do, do not let the RH get below 30 percent or you will end up with matchsticks.

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There is a simple solution to this--I'll come stay in your guest house as a writing retreat and then the piano will get a lot of use. Wink

But it won't have that Schubert tuning!


Just to be clear about the alternative placement, in the living room, the piano would go in the back corner against the wall. It's hard to see, but there is a low wall extension that creates a path into the entryway. We're going out in July for a two-week stay, and I'll have all my measurements to see if the beast would comfortably fit in that corner. And once again, that big-@ss sofa arrangement would have to go!

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Originally posted by piqué:
Be very careful about moving that piano from VA to NM. The change in humidity is going to be quite a shock. I would ship it in a climate controlled truck and have the room it is destined for set for the humidity it is accustomed to, and then very grandually reduce the humidity to what is reasonable to maintain in your new climate. But whatever you do, do not let the RH get below 30 percent or you will end up with matchsticks.

How much will the Dampp-Chaser system help?

do you have the 192? you will want min 8' to allow for a comfortable sitting distance. and perhaps marc could be persuaded to visit santa fe, who knows? i can't tell from the pic where you intend to put it.

when we first moved my grotrian to helena, we didn't have a room that closes so I hung a double layer of drapes over the entrance to the room. I did the same in our current house, which has a sunken living room and needed a very long wall of drapes to contain the humidity.

that was only necessary until the piano acclimated.

the dampp chaser system is really designed to help with more humid climates. it's not a great help in a desert climate, because it only conditions the soundboard, and the whole piano really needs to be conditioned. but of course it could be better than nothing.

my philosophy is that you must keep the room humidity up anyway, so i chose to not go to the expense of a dampp chaser. i keep a hygrometer on the piano and i run a venta airwasher as needed. i do my best to keep the humidity between 35 and 45 percent. any lower than 35 percent is panic time.

maybe during your two-week visit you can set up a hygrometer where the piano will go and keep an eye on it. that should give you an idea of how challenging--or not--the piano move will be.

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maybe during your two-week visit you can set up a hygrometer where the piano will go and keep an eye on it.

Yep, I was going to suggest this.

Re the dampp chaser, I got one installed this past winter and it seemed to really help the piano stay in tune.

In your situation, I would plan for dc *and* some kind of freestanding humidifier in the room.

One of the nice things about both the dampp chaser and something like a Venta humidifier is that both only need to have water added once a week or so, unlike products that need water added once or twice a day. This means when you go away, you can have someone come once a week to add water, rather than needing more regular visits.

Re the piano placement, in that photo, will the pianist sit with their back to the patio doors then?

What’s at the foreground in the photo? Is there a photo looking into that space from the entryway?

when you are gone, if no one is coming and going and the doors and windows stay closed, there is little chance that the humidity will travel much, even with the airwasher turned off. assuming your house is insulated and your windows and doors are weatherstripped, and you keep your heat set to 60 or below.

the danger with a dampp chaser is that you will rely on it, and in a desert climate you really do have to humidify the room and keep the room humidity stable.

over time, you can gradually introduce lower humidity as the piano's new normal. just stay above 30 percent at all costs.

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assuming your house is insulated and your windows and doors are weatherstripped

And assuming the house itself is quite tight. I would guess the age of the house matters as well.

Well, also, even with the heat set low, if it were winter and the heat was on (which I assume it would need to be?) then most likely the house would gradually dry out even if the house was all closed up.

Re relying on the dampp chaser, I need to keep this in mind myself once winter comes -- i.e., to keep an eye on the room humidity and not just assume the piano is ok because of the dc.

We're in a 1977 house that is far from perfectly weather tight, and we keep the thermostat set for 60F. We have often left the house closed up while gone for while and we've come home to the same RH as when we left.

We were gone for 3 weeks in Feb last year and no issues. Of course, the temperatures did not plunge to single digits or subzero. Then, I believe, we would have had a problem. I kept tabs on the local forecast while we were away, and had the weather gotten severely cold I would have asked our horse sitter to attend to the airwasher.

it's surprising how much opening and closing doors/windows affects this calculus. it makes a huge difference.

House built in 1994. Well constructed, well insulated.

Heat is floor/radiant. Mitsubishi units not really needed for heat. No forced air heating from a furnace, so that source of dryness isn't present.

In the great room, I was thinking the piano would go in the corner where that mirror and picture are. Well, the mirror is still there, but we have different art on the wall.

The bench would be in the corner, and the nose of the piano might not stick out beyond the low wall that defines the entryway. The lid would thus open to the middle of the room. That is as far from the fireplace (rarely used) as it can be, and big windows all have thick pull-down shades. No direct sun would hit the piano.

BUT ... y'all are moving me toward putting the piano in the casita just because that's the easiest space to humidify.

I will bring a hygrometer, or order a new one, so I can see what the humidity is like indoors in July. I'm thinking winter will be the worst for the lowest lows. And I'm sure it's variable we do get a fair bit of moisture in winter. The ski area 8 miles up the road got 270" last season! We got much less, of course, "down" at 7,300 feet.

sounds like a really well built house.

since the floor emits heat, can you put a rug with padding under it under the full footprint of the piano?

how cold is coldest in winter in santa fe?

helena is a high elevation desert and i find i have the most trouble keeping the humidity in proper range in the summer. we get big drying winds coming through here that sap the moisture out of everything.