Basses and hot air heating

[Merton]

So, as some of you may or may not know, I'm looking to buy my first home. Wohoo! Getting lots of details, all is spandulous. Quite a few apartments around my area are 60's/70's build and have hot air heating instead of the far more sensible gas fired central heating with radiators and all.

My mum asked a random question yesterday - how does that affect the wood on basses, the necks especially? Any experiences? Should I just not care? See, mother dearest reckons it could dry em out. Personally I reckon as long as I'm sensible and don't sit the basses on top of a vent they'll be OK? Bit like not sitting them right by a radiator really...

[Kiwi]

What kills basses is when the instrument is being subjected to either extreme changes in temperature or humidity. In normal room temperatures your instrument will probably be OK. Just keep it away from direct sources of heat.

In the US keeping a bass overnight in a car during a winter frost (say any temperature below freezing) and then taking it into the house (heated to 22-25 degrees C) the morning after can cause the wood to relax faster than the finish resulting in cracking (which is why you sometimes see the linear crazing on some older basses with cellulose or nitro finishes).

Condensation can cause the wood to swell unevenly also which may make the instrument warp. But the chances of this happening are greatly reduced if your instrument is completely covered with a polyester finish (ie no oil finishes).

Finally, sometimes there are just inbuilt tensions in the wood that have not been released by adequate drying and there's not much anyone can do to avoid these apart from making sure you buy from a reputable maker. For example, some of the cheaper Parker guitars, the P38's and P40's have been experiencing problems with warped necks because of this maturation process. The wood for the necks probably wasn't dried out properly enough when first milled.

I remember with my status necked Stingray after it came back from the Bass Gallery, that the neck was significantly bowed. The reason for this was that the bass had been stored in a cold room and the cold had caused the epoxy resin or even the truss rod in the neck to contract. It took 48 hours for the whole bass to relax again so that the action was half playable.

[john_the_bass]

my family home used to have that hot air heating, until the old man ripped it all out a couple of years ago and had radiators put in. There were always at least a dozen guitars in there at any one time and i don't remember them ever being affected.

if you do buy the house, get rid of that and get proper central heating fitted - i'm assuming it will be gas fired like ours was, but relies on electric motors to force the hot air out and it's not cheap to run. Plus, if the system was as old as ours was (1973 i think), then if the motor hasn't been replaced, it could be needing one - if you find that's the case, i've got a motor in the cupboard oddly enough!

[Merton]

Cheers peeps, I thought as much.

John - I'll keep that in mind should I go for a place with said heating, cheers!

[Rich]

But hey, a big hand to your mum for thinking of it in the first place. I don't think my mum ever even realised they were made of wood, never mind if the heating would roger them or not.

[Merton]

[quote name='Rich' post='47096' date='Aug 18 2007, 11:24 AM']But hey, a big hand to your mum for thinking of it in the first place. I don't think my mum ever even realised they were made of wood, never mind if the heating would roger them or not.[/quote]
Absolutely! Big thumbs up.