The piano should be treated like a houseplant. In order to thrive, it must be protected from extremes in temperature, humidity, and light.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

If you have invested a substantial amount of money in the purchase of your piano and you want it to survive Alaska’s seasonal roller coaster, the Dampp-Chaser Piano Lifesaver system is the solution.

I remember once when a new client hired me to tune a baby grand piano, then to play at her daughter’s wedding in Anchorage. The piano hadn’t been serviced in a very long time. It lived through many tough winters and had a crack in the soundboard several millimeters wide, which was the source of a buzzing noise when I played my jazz and classical repertoire. This issue was completely preventable.

The Piano Lifesaver System has been installed in more than 520,000 pianos worldwide, and with a good reason. The Piano Lifesaver can double (even triple) the useful life of your piano. If your instrument is something you want to pass down to younger generations, or if you want to get the best possible resale value for your piano, consider installing one of these systems inside your piano.

What is it? It is a climate system that regulates the humidity inside the piano to 45%, regardless of what the relative humidity is inside the house. A basic system consists of a humidifier tank, sensor probes, humidistat, and dehumidifiers.

The humidistat senses when the moisture content in the wood parts of the piano are too low or too high, and cycles the humdifier and dehumidifier to maintain constant level of humidity.

The soundboard is the heart and soul of the piano, and is made from a thin piece of Sitka spruce that is quite sensitive to changes in the humidity. It will swell and bow outward in high humidity, putting extra tension on the strings (raising the pitch), then will shrink in low humidity (dropping the pitch). It is not uncommon that some of my client’s pianos will drop 20% or more in pitch during the winter months, and then go 20% sharp in the fall when we get a lot of rain. It will also develop hairline cracks in very dry climates and seasons, and those cracks often grow larger if they are neglected.

Preventing the swelling and shrinking of the soundboard helps the piano hold stable tunings, making practice and performance more enjoyable.

The piano should be treated like a houseplant. In order to thrive, it must be protected from extremes in temperature, humidity, and light.

Click here to visit the Piano Lifesaver website to learn more about how it protects your piano.