Damp Chaser in old upright

[Tony Caught]

Hi Judy,

Our weather conditions seem the same (humidity range) but right now we  have
had a dry spell. I have been fitting Dampp-chasers for ten years now,
started of with the humidistat's set at 42% and 25W rods to today's
Humidistat set at 55% with 50W rods.

The 25 W / 42% system stays on all through the "wet"  which means that the
internal RH was most likely about 55% and then dries the piano out to 42%
RH, then when the dry dry spell comes in, it all dries out too much. The dry
spell only lasts for about 3 weeks but that's enough to dry the piano out
too much.

The 50W / 55% system does switch off and on even when the RH is over 80% but
does not dry the piano out to the 42% mark, it stops at 55%. Now what
happened when the dry snap came in was to dry the piano out to 40% which is
acceptable whereas with the other system, it dried out to say 30% which is
of course, to dry in comparison to the upper limit.

I have always figured that if you can keep a piano to within a 20% humidity
swing, it will survive reasonably well. So go for a "wet" 55% humidistat
with a 50W rod in your area.

Tony Caught

----- Original Message -----
From: jstuart1 <jstuart1@pdq.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: Damp Chaser in old upright


> Thanks Clyde. I ommitted my first name because I am not sure how everyone
accepts female
> techs. When I was into electronics (pinball machines) it was my experience
that if I
> posted my name, no one would reply but if I just posted JStuart everyone
thought I was
> male and would answer my questions. My name is Judy. Usually the humitity
here is
> houston runs between 40 and 100% There are very few days where it is less
than 50 % and
> on average I would guess 70-80.
>
> Judy
>
> Clyde Hollinger wrote:
>
> > JStewart (a first name would be nice),
> >
> > A piano equipped with an uncontrolled heat rod could be worse off than
having no
> > humidity control at all, depending on the humidity of the Houston area.
At the very
> > least it should have a humidistat to shut it off when it gets dry
enough.  These are
> > available from Dampp-Chaser.
> >
> > All of us were beginners at one time.  Hang around this list, go to
conventions and
> > you'll learn a lot!
> >
> > Regards,
> > Clyde Hollinger
> >
> > jstuart1 wrote:
> >
> > > I believe this piano has just the heating rod. I am in Houston so the
humidity
> > > here runs from the 40's to the 100 range. I don't believe the bar is
on any sort
> > > of timer or other control and the owner indicated that it stays on all
the time.
> > > I am not sure what the rating of the rod is.
>