Dampp Chaser, Humidity

[tech@steinway.com]

In our opinion, if the room can be succesfully kept within the range of 40
to 55 % relative humidity, a Dampchaser is not necessary.

Steinway and Sons suggests the use of the Dampchaser when the location can
not be controlled within these ranges.

Mike Mohr
Steinway factory, NYC At 09:57 AM 11/9/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi:
>
>I hope the subscribers of this list don't mind a question from somebody who
>is not a tuner or technician.
>
>I own two Steinway grands: a model D less than a year old, and a model B
>about two years old. My question relates to the necessity of using a Dampp
>Chaser system.
>
>On the model D, the dealer installed a Dampp Chaser system and it has
>always concerned me that the long rods are very hot -- you can't even touch
>them for more than a few seconds.
>
>I brought this to the attention of the dealer's technician and he moved
>them down a couple inches (thereby adding more holes to the piano
>woodwork!).
>
>But still they remain very hot.
>
>On the other hand, the Dampp Chaser wants a drink every week! So it seems
>that the system is fighting itself.
>
>The final straw is that I just bought a couple hand-held hygrometers (I got
>two different ones to, hopefully, make sure they were in the ballpark with
>their humidity readings). In the room with the model D, the humidity is
>consistently between 40% and 50%, which sounds good.
>
>In a nutshell, is a Dampp chaser necessary in my scenario, and does it
>appear to be malfunctioning since it is always very hot to the touch, yet
>wants to be filled with water each week?
>
>Thanks very much for your comments.
>
>Frank Leister
>Mechanicsburg, PA
>
>
>