Humid Seattle to dry ABQ - how is your piano's health in dry NM? (Albuquerque: house, live)
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If you have a piano in a dry desert climate, do you have any advice on how you keep your piano healthy in such a dry climate, where a piano does best in constant 40-50% humidity?
We're worried about our piano, especially the soundboard cracking moving from a humid to dry region.
First, we're thinking we will set up the piano in a humid-controlled room, so when we run the swamp cooler all day and return to a super humid house, the poor piano won't go from dry to humid over and over again, when we turn off the swamp cooler and it gets dry in the house. (We did that once when staying in a VRBO in Placitas.)
We also wonder how long we have to set up this humid controlled room before we risk the soundboard cracking.
If you have any tips, suggestions, experience you'd like to share, I'd love to hear!
Interesting. I can't tell you about pianos, but I think your choice of swamp cooling over A/C is a good one; it will increase the humidity in your space. Then the only concern would be wintertime. You could consider using humidifiers in the piano room.
When I moved here from Seattle, I only had a problem with 2 pieces of furniture. One was an antique table from my grandparents. The top of it cracked in half. The other item was a coffee table from China. Same thing; a crack across the entire surface. Everything else, including other old Asian furniture and another couple of antique grand-parental items, have done fine.
But now that you bring it up, I'm glad I didn't bring my grandma's "upright grand" piano.
You might want to contact Robertson & Sons - https://www.robertsonviolins.com/. They're a world class violin manufacturer that's based in Albuquerque, and I suspect their advice about how best to take care of violins here would be pretty applicable to your piano as well.
BTW, they also offer group tours, which my wife and I found very interesting. I would recommend this to anyone interested in fine musical instruments, watching extremely skilled artisans work, or even if you just appreciate excellence.
Another, somewhat similar place to tour is Pimentel & Sons - Pimentel & Sons Guitarmakers, an ABQ based manufacturer of world class guitars. They have a different vibe than Robertsons, but are also very interesting.
We took tours of both places through Oasis - https://www.oasisnet.org/, an active adult learning organization that offers hundreds of classes and tours during each year. Don't know whether Robertsons or Pimentel would do tours for individuals, but it couldn't hurt to call them and ask if you're interested.
Interesting. I can't tell you about pianos, but I think your choice of swamp cooling over A/C is a good one; it will increase the humidity in your space. Then the only concern would be wintertime. You could consider using humidifiers in the piano room.
When I moved here from Seattle, I only had a problem with 2 pieces of furniture. One was an antique table from my grandparents. The top of it cracked in half. The other item was a coffee table from China. Same thing; a crack across the entire surface. Everything else, including other old Asian furniture and another couple of antique grand-parental items, have done fine.
But now that you bring it up, I'm glad I didn't bring my grandma's "upright grand" piano.
Please let us know how your experiment fares.
Thanks R4T, for the details on your furniture. We're downsizing and wondered if we should sell or bring the rosewood dining room furniture with us. I think we have our answer!
If we finally decide to move to your neck of the woods, I'll definitely let you know how things go. I'll be on this forum asking so many questions, you'll know everything as it happens! And the piano will be part of the whole story.
And oh, yeah, I do love swamp coolers. I don't care for humidity, but in the dry desert, they are absolutely lovely. Ideally, a house would have central air AND a swamp cooler. I don't know how common that is, but that would be my preference. We'll see how the story unfolds...
You might want to contact Robertson & Sons - https://www.robertsonviolins.com/. They're a world class violin manufacturer that's based in Albuquerque, and I suspect their advice about how best to take care of violins here would be pretty applicable to your piano as well.
BTW, they also offer group tours, which my wife and I found very interesting. I would recommend this to anyone interested in fine musical instruments, watching extremely skilled artisans work, or even if you just appreciate excellence.
Another, somewhat similar place to tour is Pimentel & Sons - Pimentel & Sons Guitarmakers, an ABQ based manufacturer of world class guitars. They have a different vibe than Robertsons, but are also very interesting.
We took tours of both places through Oasis - https://www.oasisnet.org/, an active adult learning organization that offers hundreds of classes and tours during each year. Don't know whether Robertsons or Pimentel would do tours for individuals, but it couldn't hurt to call them and ask if you're interested.
Whoah, rwjoyak! Thanks for all those links. Yes, I would like to visit and explore the instrument manufacturers you mention, and it is a good idea to call them up. I agree that violin manufacturers use delicate woods, too, in their instruments, and I'm sure they have a great deal to say about how to care for the violins. Robertson's looks like a great place to start. Although keeping a violin and a piano "healthy" will likely require different techniques, my guess is what troubles one with similarly trouble the other.
I found PianoWerkes in ABQ, which I will also call. I'll report back my findings. Stay tuned!
Thanks R4T, for the details on your furniture. We're downsizing and wondered if we should sell or bring the rosewood dining room furniture with us. I think we have our answer!
If we finally decide to move to your neck of the woods, I'll definitely let you know how things go. I'll be on this forum asking so many questions, you'll know everything as it happens! And the piano will be part of the whole story.
And oh, yeah, I do love swamp coolers. I don't care for humidity, but in the dry desert, they are absolutely lovely. Ideally, a house would have central air AND a swamp cooler. I don't know how common that is, but that would be my preference. We'll see how the story unfolds...
I totally understand, about wanting both swamp AND A/C! There definitely are days, when swamp is useless, and you'll need A/C. People without A/C just struggle through those days.
We lived in Albuquerque 27 years and had A/C. We much preferred that over a swamp cooler. Your piano will suffer most during the winter, when you will be bringing cold, dry air into the house and heating it. You have to import a lot of moisture into the house to combat that. We had a humidifier built into our central heating system, but it never could keep the humidity at a decent level. My acoustic guitars suffered and I had to have them worked on from time to time.
I think your best bet is to dedicate one room for the piano and put whatever resources you need into keeping the humidity in that room as close to 40 percent as possible.
Thanks R4T, for the details on your furniture. We're downsizing and wondered if we should sell or bring the rosewood dining room furniture with us. I think we have our answer!
If we finally decide to move to your neck of the woods, I'll definitely let you know how things go. I'll be on this forum asking so many questions, you'll know everything as it happens! And the piano will be part of the whole story.
And oh, yeah, I do love swamp coolers. I don't care for humidity, but in the dry desert, they are absolutely lovely. Ideally, a house would have central air AND a swamp cooler. I don't know how common that is, but that would be my preference. We'll see how the story unfolds...
1. We did the opposite, moved from dry climate to humid (CO to NC). All of our furniture did okay. You could tell with some things that wood moved a little and expanded. But I agree, the opposite (NC to CO/NM, for example) wouldn't be good for furniture. I would also hate to see rosewood shrinking and cracking. It's now considered engendered species, and, hope someone else will enjoy it instead of it getting all cracked and destroyed in NM.
2. It was common in CO. You may not care for humidity now while in Seattle... but your skin, your lips and nose will beg for it after a while. It's good to have a swamp cooler even tho they look ugly. There is definitely place for both IMO.
I moved some furniture to NM from humid MO six years ago and the veneer is popping off some of the antiques and some panels are shrinking on others. I have a swamp cooler but it can't do enough for some old pieces. Right now it is 27% humidity but later it will likely be in single digits and then back up again at night so the daily cycle probably has a bearing on it.
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There is definitely place for both IMO.
