Here in Laredo the humidity is generally higher then recorded for Dallas, especially when cold fronts blow through Dallas. We had a half system on the S&S D at the local college. A cold front blew through here right in the middle of recital concert season and the tuning went south, significantly. The dean of the school of music demanded to know what could be done to prevent this. We installed a one tank system on it and now the shift is measured in single digit cents. Quite frankly, if you have a customer that prizes stability you are short-changing them with a one sided system. If the customer doesn't really care it might be OK but those cold fronts will make you look bad. One thing to consider is customer mobility. They move to Aridzona, West Texas or New Mexico and believe the piano is protected. Who do they blame. I put a full system on with a beeper. It gets maintained. Nothing like, "MEEP MEEP MEEP ... ..." to get that done. I advise the person handling the piano to put a few cups of water in before a concert just in-case the water is low at the time. I've had customers ask me to add the beeper because the lights just don't get their attention. I have an older concert grand here in the teaching studio and the one sided system just did not stabilize the piano. Adding the second half worked great. Our climate here is pretty stable compared to other parts of the country, but if you are sensitive to pitch you will realize that pianos go out of tune just as fast and easy as guitars do. They just take longer to tune. Andrew Anderson, Artisan Piano On Nov 8, 2008, at 5:03 PM, Dan Reed wrote: > Here in Dallas TX, the 1/2 system seems to make sense, keeping the > jumps in RH at bay...generally, we don't get real dry here...my > view, the wet side is maintenance heavy. > > Dan > > Dallas > > On Nov 8, 2008, at 4:16 PM, Fred Sturm wrote: > >> On Nov 8, 2008, at 9:37 AM, David Love wrote: >> >>> Similarly, if you reside out in the desert or some other similarly >>> constantly dry climate I would see no reason to install the >>> dehumification part of the system--though with virtually no >>> maintenance required for that part it probably wouldn't matter. >> New Mexico qualifies as desert, with annual rainfall in Albuquerque >> around 8 inches (other areas vary quite a bit, many being drier). >> Yet I install quite a few half systems with just de-humidifier (DRY >> humidistat). Our rain comes seasonally, and in July through >> September we typically have afternoon showers "somewhere within >> sight" (within sight extends well over 50 miles here) even if it >> doesn't actually rain where we are. The ambient humidity from that >> alone means most homes top 50% RH. Add the use of common >> evaporative coolers, and interior RH can top 80%. Pitch swings tend >> to be extreme at that time of year, with 50 cent pitch lowering >> common. >> IOW, you need to know the details. At the university, my half >> systems save me about 20 cents pitch lowering before fall semester >> over same model without. >> I can imagine a situation where I would install a half system >> with just the humidifier, but it would be a pretty specific case. I >> suppose that the dealership did it as "soundboard crack insurance." >> But it seems kind of stupid considering the minor expense and >> trouble to attach and plug in one or two drying rods. Roger >> Wheelock says the cycling back and forth creates a more stable >> environment, according to their testing. >> Regards, >> Fred Sturm >> University of New Mexico >> fssturm at unm.edu >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081112/2c963918/attachment-0001.html>
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