03/10/2023
Where Should You Put Your Piano?
You just got a piano. Maybe you inherited it from a great aunt, picked one up from a Freecycle ad, or bought one off Facebook Marketplace. Perhaps there’s been one sitting in your family room for years, and you don’t even know where it came from, but you’ve decided not to complain about it, because - hey - free piano. Also, it’s too heavy to put in the attic with the Christmas decoration.
But…where should it go?
Now perhaps you’ve known all along where you would put a piano, should you ever be lucky enough to acquire one. It’s going in the living room, against the wall opposite your OLED TV, between the two Pottery Barn bookshelves, and under the framed print of a steampunk grumpy cat. That’s fantastic, and no honest piano technician will ever question your interior decorating chops. Yet, there are some other factors you should keep in mind.
Your piano is a complex beast with anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 moving parts. It has enemies from which it needs protection. These are water and heat. Every piano is made of multiple types of material - the wood of the case, block, and keys, the iron plate, the steel strings, and the felt hammers, as well as leather, brass, glue, and even plastic. Each of these materials responds differently to changes in temperature. Most expand when it’s hot and contract when it’s cold. Some become brittle, while others deform. Humidity does the same. The more humid it is, the more these materials absorb water from the air around them. The drier it becomes, the more moisture these materials lose, shrinking and sometimes cracking. Actual water pe*******on can create a nightmare of mold and rot.
These changes are usually very small, but they add up. Your piano goes out of tune more quickly, glue cracks, leather wears out, steel and iron rust, and parts of your piano can stop working. Bits that shouldn’t rub start to touch. Other bits that should touch lose contact. Keys stick, strings break, and hammers don’t strike properly. You might not notice a problem for years, but in that time, your piano can actually be ruined. Even if you catch it before it gets that far, the repairs necessary can become time consuming and expensive. A good piano tech can help, but prevention is always easier and cheaper than repair.
So, whether you’re bringing a piano home or just rearranging your furniture, keep in mind the following guidelines:
- No direct sunlight. Sunlight transfers a great deal of heat, and it can fade, dry out, and crack the finish.
- Stay away from exterior doors, windows, and walls. These places are where your home experiences the greatest swings in temperature, from drafts to water leakage to doors slammed open.
- Stay away from heating and cooling registers. Intakes are fine, because they pull air in from the rest of the house. Forced air heating blows warm, dry air, which brings up the temperature of your piano unevenly and also dries it out, while air conditioning hits it with cold, dry air, causing uneven shrinking and contraction.
- Avoid any and all sources of moisture. Nobody reading this would pour a bucket of water on their piano, but some people don’t realize that keeping a houseplant on top of their piano is just as bad. Every time you water your plant, you run the risk of spilling water onto and into the piano. So, no water polo, no aquariums, and no drinks unless they’re in a spill-proof container.
- Keep the fallboard - the pullout cover for the keys - engaged unless you’re playing. Not only does it protect the keys, but it’ll prevent those panicked two a.m. awakenings when the cat decides he’s musically talented.
I wish you great happiness and many years with your piano.
Robin Rhoads
Winfield Piano Tuning
Winfield, KS
