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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.

Hmm, this is encouraging! Our new house was built in 1990, and in the short time we've been in it, it feels much more tight to me than our old house (1960).

P*D I think that's a great placement (corner here the mirror and print are). But a room you can close up is going to much each to treat.

So IMO, the big question for you is how you will use the piano. Do you want to have music parties? Then maybe the piano needs to go in the main living room. Piano used only by or someone else practicing alone? Then put it in the casita.

Maybe.

or turn the casita into a chamber music parlor/concert hall.

We're a high elevation desert as well, but we have monsoonal moisture from June/July to September. Well, we WANT monsoonal moisture but it doesn't always appear in quantity!

The coldest winter temperature can be between 0 and -10, but sub-zero is unusual. Lows are normally in the teens or twenties, with one or two cold fronts pushing things down lower.

In summer, 90-95 is a really hot day, and it cools to 62 or lower in the evening.

I can/will put a rug under the piano. I have one underneath it at present.


BTW, Accuweather tells me that today's indoor humidity is around 10% ...

Although we're a "desert," the landscape is quite forested (piñon / juniper).

Here's a view from a walk in the neighborhood ...

The mountain in the far distance is Sandia, and it's 50 miles away. On a clear day I can see from the portal wall all the way to Mt. Taylor, which is 95 miles away.

I don’t have a dog in this race but I have to say that your new house is absolutely spectacular!

Looks very similar to where we are. We have a ponderosa/juniper forest on about 3 of our five acres. We just had it thinned for wildfire mitigation. One new thing I learned is that junipers become fire bombs in a wildfire, they act as an accelerant. We had *all* our junipers removed. I was worried it would affect our privacy, but we have just as much privacy as before, and even better views. The contractor we used was very discriminating about what he removed and what he left behind. And some of the junipers he took out had to have been a couple of hundred years old--they were really huge. We'll use for fence posts and firewood.

all of which is to say, our climates are somewhat similar, though we get both hotter and colder than you do. I think you meant your outdoor humidity is 10 percent. that happens here on the regular. We just keep all the windows and doors tightly closed and run the airwasher.

I suspect your piano is going to stick out well beyond that low wall if it is the 192.

And I agree with Steve. The house is gorgeous. How about holding a WTF piano retreat when you get settled?

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
I don’t have a dog in this race but I have to say that your new house is absolutely spectacular!

We're rather fond of it. And we couldn't afford it today, given what has happened to real estate prices in the area over the past few years.

This has nothing to do with pianos, but here is the entrance to the main house in a winter evening sun.




Accuweather gives "indoor" and "outdoor" humidity. It's up to 24% right now (for both). They say "slightly dry."

If I do keep the piano in the casita, any piano party would have to have two components. Listening and playing in the casita and socializing in the main house. We do have four BR, so some of y'all could stay!

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And we couldn't afford it today, given what has happened to real estate prices in the area over the past few years.

I can only imagine! Markets everywhere are insane.

The insanity varies. In Williamsburg, prices have gone up modestly by comparison.

I missed your evening sun photo, gorgeous!!

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Accuweather gives "indoor" and "outdoor" humidity.

I wonder how accuweather estimates the indoor humidity.

In any case, I advise you just ignore it. The indoor humidity will depend a lot on the house.

The house we were renting and the house we just bought are in the same neighborhood (i.e., same climate) and are very similar in age. But the rental is sitting on top of an untreated crawl space (i.e. no moisture barrier) and has an oversized HVAC (pro-tip, oversized is bad).

We had a very hard time keeping the humidity down in the rental, running the ac actually often seemed to cause it to go up. When we first moved in last summer, a few times the indoor humidity got up to 70% (w ac running). We used a free standing dehumidifier and fans and were able to get it to a better level, but usually that was closer to 55%.

Before we moved (May and June) the humidity at the rental was sitting around 55%, sometimes up to 58%. We generally set the AC at 72F, and it was rarely comfortable (i.e., too hot), which I attribute to the higher humidity. Ironically, if we set the AC to a lower temp, the humidity went up.

The house we just bought, OTOH, sits on top of half walk-out basement and half crawl space. The crawl space is encapsulated (i.e. has a moisture barrier). The walk-out part of the basement is all full-height rooms. The AC is not oversized, and seems to work much better than that in the rental. We set the AC at 74, or 75F if it feels too cold. I have hygrometers all over the house and the humidity readings are generally sitting at around 40% (sometimes they drop down to 35%, sometimes they're up to closer to, but not at, 50% ). The house is so comfortable, which I'm sure is a combination of the AC/temp and humidity levels. I have not set up a dehumidifier of course (whereas, at the rental, we couldn't live without it).

Sorry to go on, you can tell I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to manage the humidity!

So anyway, I can't imagine how a weather app could estimate indoor humidity, and I can't imagine it would in any way reliable.

Once again I’m blown away by how beautiful that house is!

I’ve always loved the desert.