Putting guitars, pianos, cellos and other stringed wood instruments into self-storage SAFELY can be tricky. There are many environmental factors that can warp or cause more subtle negative changes to your wood instruments tone and playability, especially when out-of-sight in a storage unit, but following some simple guidelines you should be able to store your instrument while preserving your investment.
Guitars and other ‘hand-held’ Musical Instrument Storage:
The most serious threat to safely storing your guitars, cellos etc. is humidity and temperature change.
First let’s look at temperature. If you have traveled by plane with a stringed instrument such as a guitar may have been advised to detune your strings until they are somewhat slack. The primary reason for this is temperature change during flight. The strings will contract and then expand due to the cold during flight, warping the neck.
Ideally, you want your storage unit around 72-77 degrees fahrenheit (22-25 degrees celsius), for ‘hand held’ stringed instruments such as violins or contrabasses.
More important then the actual temperature of your storage unit is the temperature fluctuation. The long term effects of daily temperature change between day and night in an non climate controlled storage unit can damage wood instruments.
There are some unusual exceptions to this. Plywood instruments, such as cheap guitars, are much more resilient to temperature and moisture in a self storage environment then their solid wood counterparts.
New high-tech carbon composite instruments, most often electric violins and electric (and acoustic!) guitars, are even more robust against moisture and temperature changes as they contain little or no actual wood.
Returning to humidity. Ideally you want a consistent humidity of 45-55%. Most self storage facilities that offer climate and humidity control should be able to tell you their humidity options.
Piano Storage
Dust, while generally not an issue for hand-held stringed instruments, can be a serious issue for self storage of pianos. Since in long-term storage dust accretions is, unfortunately, an ever present issue in self storage lockers, make sure you carefully wrap your piano and accessories in cloth.
Be sure when moving your piano into storage that you have a qualified, bonded and insured mover who specifically knows how to handle pianos, do the work. Piano moving can be dangerous for both the mover and the piano and can be more complicated then it seems. Fox example many casters on pianos are for decoration only, rolling around a piano on them can break the casters and damage the floor.
The same climate conditions for pianos in self-storage. Often people are surprised that after moving their piano to a new location it ‘suddenly’ goes out of tune. Often people will blame the jarring of an inconsiderate mover when this may, in fact, be due to the change in humidity. There are climate controlled storage facilities in most areas of the country now.
In some areas of the country piano restoration and repair facilities will offer storage. These facilities will often have moving resources and will know how to care and wrap you piano.
If you follow these guidelines I am confident you will be able to store your guitar, piano, violin or other stringed wood instrument in a self-storage unit with peace of mind that your investment will be secure.