Water Damage to Practice Room U1s

[Wayne Walker]

The teaching end of our business had a similar fate during Hurricane Juan in
2004. The roof of the building blew off and rain pour in for about 7-10
hours. Fortunely the teachers closed the fallboards at the end of the day.
The piano were allowed to dry for a few months while we monitor the
conditions. The uprights are Yamaha P116 and C1 grand. All of the pianos are
back into service after some cleaning and regulating. The C1 keybed
developed some splits after 6 months but we are still able to use it. There
will be some fine surface rust on the music wire which comes off easy. We
had no problem with the polyester finish. I hope this helpful.

Wayne Walker
Piano Tuner & Technician
MUSICSTOP LTD
1005 Dow Rd, New Minas, NS
B4N 3R4
Cell 902-221-1540
Fax 902-681-1463
wayne.w@musicstop.com
<mailto:wayne.w@musicstop.com>
www.musicstop.com

-----Original Message-----
From: william ballard [mailto:yardbird@vermontel.net]
Sent: February 23, 2006 11:36 AM
To: Pianotech List; caut@ptg.org
Cc: Ines Gomez-Ochoa
Subject: Water Damage to Practice Room U1s


Dear Lists,

On Monday at a local private school, the valves on fire sprinkler
systems failed in two practice rooms failed, and two Yamaha U1s (2 y-
o, both) got rained on. Preliminary inspection after a day of sitting
in a dry room with case panels off revealed (and compared to T116s
down the hall which escaped damage) only loose plate bolts (a sign of
expanding then shrinking backframes), tight balance rail holes on the
keys (possibly transitory as the keys return to normal moisture
content), and in one piano (the worst hit) what appears to be
swelling of bass bichord and treble trichord damper felts. These are
all easy matters to deal with.

The other concern for which I'm writing the two lists is the long
range on. The water level at the follor in these twos rooms was high
enough (6" according to reports), that after the rooms' accumulated
water had exited through opened doors, there was water draining out
of the bottom of the insides of the two pianos. Once the situation
was known, students went to work immediately drying off anything in
the piano which they didn't feel scared to touch with towels. When I
inspected the pianos the next day, all seemed fine. But that still
leaves maybe two possible three hours during which the insides and
outsides of the floor levels of these piano were immersed in water.

I'm planning next week to put each of these pianos on its back and
inspect the joinery of the backposts and the spacers. Any warning
signs to look out for?

More generally, has anyone nursed new pianos (presumably with resin
core panels) back from such a disaster and can offer the long view,
say six months to a year?

Thanks in advance for your replies

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.
wbps@vermontel.net

"Lydia thinks she knows everything, and Lyle thinks he owns the place"
     ...........The outgoing staff technician to the new guy,
concerning the resident artiste/pianist and the Chief Custodian
+++++++++++++++++++++


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