As piano technicians and rebuilders, we strongly recommend adding a Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver humidity control system to any piano, especially if the piano is a significant financial investment or resides in an extreme or unstable humidity environment. Having installed thousands of systems since 1983, we know that pianos with these systems perform better and last longer than pianos without a system. The short-term benefits include better pitch stability and action reliability, while the long-term benefits include significantly reducing the likelihood of soundboard cracks, rust, mold, failed glue joints, and delamination. With older pianos with existing soundboard cracks that have not yet opened, a system can prevent the cracks from opening and spreading.
From a piano technician’s perspective, it can seem miraculous that pianos work at all! Besides iron, steel, and brass, pianos are made mostly from wood, felt, and leather, porous materials whose stability depends on the surrounding humidity environment. The soundboard is the most important piece of wood in any piano, not only giving the piano its voice but also its pitch stability by providing a stable platform for the hundreds of steel and copper wires in the piano. Wood is also used to make thousands of tiny precision parts in the action of a piano. These wooden parts are padded with other porous, and therefore humidity-sensitive materials such as felt and leather whose purpose is to minimize noise from direct wood-to-wood contact. These parts must fit together snugly enough not to rattle or click, yet loosely enough to move freely. The tolerances are minuscule. The fact that piano actions work as well as they do is a testament to the quality of the materials, meticulous seasoning, and the precision machining these materials undergo before being installed in the piano. Still, for these parts to continue to function reliably year after year at a consistently high level, a stable humidity environment is needed. Most of us are unable or unwilling to maintain museum-like control over the humidity levels in our homes, which is why a humidity control system made specifically for pianos is such an important addition. “Dampp-Chaser” Piano Life Saver systems provide round-the-clock humidity control from inside your piano. Each system consists of a humidifier, a dehumidifier, and a humidistat (like a thermostat for humidity) which adds or removes humidity as needed to provide constant stability to your piano from within. They are designed specifically for pianos, make no sound (having neither motors nor moving parts), and do not diminish in any way the performance of your piano. We install them here at Rick Jones Pianos for $798, often on pianos costing as much as 50-60 times the price of the system itself. This fact alone makes it difficult to justify NOT adding a “Dampp-Chaser” Piano Life Saver System to your piano.
Of course! First, start with this tutorial video below:
If you still have questions:
Click here for the manufacturer’s care and maintenance instructions
We use only professional, insured piano movers who will set up and position your piano in your home wherever you like. When they leave, it’s ready to play.
Delivery is free of charge within 100 miles of our store in Beltsville, Maryland, but we deliver to all 48 mainland states. Call us at 301-345-5425 for a delivery quote if you are outside of our free delivery zone.
Regular tuning is to a piano what regular exercise is to our bodies. Most piano tuners recommend tuning a piano twice per year. Regular piano tuning by a qualified professional piano tuner/technician is necessary to maintain the correct tension on your piano’s hundreds of wires (17-30 tons of total tension, depending on the piano’s size), which optimizes your piano’s tuning stability. Re-tuning a piano after a long period of neglect, during which the wires have lost hundreds of pounds of tension, puts an unnecessary strain on the piano’s internal parts, and usually requires at least one preliminary tuning usually called a “pitch-raising” or “pitch correction” before a stable tuning can be achieved. All of this can be avoided by regular tuning.
After a move or delivery, a piano should be allowed at least 4-6 weeks to re-settle and acclimate to its new surroundings before re-tuning. We suggest that you schedule your first tuning with your local technician approximately 3 months after delivery, though you may wish to do it sooner or later, depending on your musical needs.
We cannot appraise pianos over the phone or by e-mail. Without being able to inspect the piano, any guess at its value is pointless. You may believe it’s in good condition, and you may be right, but without a recent internal inspection by a piano technician, you cannot know that for sure.
We suggest that you hire a local piano technician to thoroughly inspect and appraise the piano. The piano technician should be able to estimate a realistic value for your piano based on its inherent quality and the condition of its internal parts.
The best way to find a good piano technician in your area to inspect and appraise your piano is to search the website of The Piano Technicians Guild. Every name you see listed will be a Registered Piano Technician (RPT) who has passed a series of rigorous examinations administered by The Piano Technicians Guild to certify their skills.
This composition is by Rick Jones, but it was never written down…until now. Finally, after dozens of requests, the sheet music to “The Little Bird” can be downloaded here. Rick himself never plays this tune exactly the same way twice, so no sheet music could ever be an exact rendering of what Rick plays, but we think it’s close enough. Enjoy!
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RICK JONES PIANOS 5209 Holland Drive Beltsville, Maryland, 20705
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301-345-5425
