The Pacific Northwest Humidity Roller Coaster

If you've lived in the Seattle area for any length of time, you know our weather has a personality. Wet, gray winters. Those glorious but surprisingly dry summers. And the shoulder seasons in between where anything can happen in a single afternoon.

For people, this is just life in the Pacific Northwest. For pianos, it's a year-round stress test.

Pianos are mostly wood, felt, and metal, and wood is the one that causes the most trouble. The soundboard, the bridges, the pin block — these are all made from carefully selected, carefully dried wood. And wood never stops responding to moisture in the air. When humidity goes up, wood swells. When it drops, wood shrinks. In a climate where outdoor humidity can swing from 85% in November to 35% in August, that's a lot of movement.

The real challenge here isn't that it's wet or that it's dry. Pianos in the Deep South deal with constant humidity. Pianos in Arizona deal with constant dryness. Our pianos deal with both, which means the soundboard is constantly adjusting, expanding, contracting, and pulling the tuning in different directions throughout the year.

So what can you do about it? A few things that actually help:

Keep your piano away from exterior walls, especially on the north side of the house. Those walls tend to be cooler and can create condensation issues nearby. Stay away from heating vents and fireplaces, too — direct heat dries out the air right around the piano faster than the rest of the room.

If you run a furnace in winter (and you probably do), a simple room humidifier nearby can help. You don't need anything fancy. A basic evaporative humidifier in the same room as the piano takes the edge off that bone-dry winter air. In summer, if your house gets really dry, the same humidifier can help, though most people don't think about it because it's not cold outside.

A hygrometer — a little device that measures humidity — is one of the most useful things a piano owner can buy. They cost about fifteen dollars. Put it near the piano and check it occasionally. You're looking for something in the 40-50% range. You won't always hit it, but you'll start to notice patterns and can respond before things get extreme.

The twice-a-year tuning schedule exists for a reason, and in the PNW it makes even more sense than most places. Tuning in spring after the winter-to-spring shift, and again in fall as things cool down and dry out, keeps your piano tracking with the seasons instead of falling behind.