Please do not put your piano anywhere near a radiator, or in direct sunlight, or in a conservatory. If you do, it has a very short life expectancy. Loose tuning pins are not the only problem caused by dryness - the damage could run well into the £1000's. Aim to keep the piano's environment at a stable relative humidity of between 40-70%.

Most pianos come to the end of their life prematurely due to prolonged exposure to dry conditions.

Since the late C19th the frames of decent pianos have been one-piece of cast iron, to handle the 20-odd tons of tension from more than 200 high tension steel and copper-wound-steel strings.


But even to this day perhaps the most important parts of a piano are still crafted from various types of wood. The soundboard is responsible for amplifying the vibrations of the strings.


But the most unfortunate victim of dryness is the wrest plank (or pin block). Each string is wound around a long tuning pin, which is deeply embedded into this very thick, cross-laminated plank of wood.


Wood expands when it gets wet, and shrinks when it dries. If the wrestplank dries up, it'll shrink and this will enlarge the holes into which each tuning pin is embedded. Eventually, the tuning pin has no grip at all, and needs to be replaced for a thicker one. If too many tuning pins have gone loose it won't be worth changing them one by one, the piano should go to a proper workshop where professional restorers can take all the old pins out and carefully, evenly put new, thicker ones in. This opens the piano up to many other possible restoration jobs - the restorer now has access to the soundboard, and they might as well put new strings on while they're at it.


This is expensive business. It'll cost about £1000 including delivery both ways to have your piano re-pinned, and the figure can double should you want it restrung and re-hammered, for example. Which brings me to the purpose of this page.. please do not put your piano anywhere near a radiator, or in direct sunlight, or in a conservatory. If you do, it has a very short life expectancy. Loose tuning pins are not the only problem caused by dryness - the damage could run well into the £1000's. Aim to keep the piano's environment at a stable relative humidity of between 40-70%.