Humidity:
Humidity directly affects your piano's performance because it is made primarily of wood. These wooden parts swell and shrink in response to seasonal and even daily changes in humidity. Extreme changes in humidity may cause wood to crack and glue joints to fail over time.
Regulate Humidity:
Strive to keep the humidity level around your piano as constant as possible. Doing so will help your piano stay in tune longer, and help prevent longer term damage such as soundboard cracks, loose tuning pins, and glue joint failures.
Here are some tips to minimize humidity problems:
Humidity control does not eliminate the need for regular piano maintenance, but it will allow for more stable tunings. This way, your piano stays closer to the optimum A-440 pitch level throughout the year.
Below is a much more detailed explanation published by the Piano Technicians Guild :
Humidity directly affects your piano's performance because it is made primarily of wood. These wooden parts swell and shrink in response to seasonal and even daily changes in humidity. Extreme changes in humidity may cause wood to crack and glue joints to fail over time.
Regulate Humidity:
Strive to keep the humidity level around your piano as constant as possible. Doing so will help your piano stay in tune longer, and help prevent longer term damage such as soundboard cracks, loose tuning pins, and glue joint failures.
Here are some tips to minimize humidity problems:
- Position your piano away from heating/cooling vents, stoves, doors, and windows.
- Keep your piano out of direct sunlight.
- Position your piano against an interior wall IF the house isn't well insulated.
- During dry seasons, use a humidifier to moisturize the air around the piano. Don't sit the humidifier next to the piano.
- During humid seasons, use a dehumidifier to reduce the amount of humidity.
- Ideally, you can have a humidity control system installed in your piano itself. This system keeps your piano at the ideal level of 42% RH. The system is installed out of sight and is easy to maintain.
Humidity control does not eliminate the need for regular piano maintenance, but it will allow for more stable tunings. This way, your piano stays closer to the optimum A-440 pitch level throughout the year.
Below is a much more detailed explanation published by the Piano Technicians Guild :