Are Japanese Yamaha Pianos Suitable for the UK Climate?

MY QUICK ANSWER: Yes! Japanese Yamaha pianos are absolutely fine in the UK. We have imported more than 3,800 of them since 2002 and sold most of them into private homes. We have never had a single comeback caused by a supposed humidity difference between Japan and Britain. If this was a real UK problem I would have found it by now.

I get asked about “grey market” Yamaha pianos quite regularly.

Somebody has normally visited another piano shop or spent an evening reading American piano forums and they’ve been warned that a Yamaha U1 or U3 from Japan was “seasoned for destination”. The suggestion is that Japan is very humid, Britain is completely different and the piano might arrive here, dry out and start falling apart.

Soundboards cracking. Tuning pins coming loose. Glue joints failing. Keys sticking. All the scary stuff.

It sounds convincing because humidity really does affect pianos. There’s just enough truth in it to make the rest sound believable.

But is a Japanese Yamaha unsuitable for the UK?

No!

Why am I so sure?

We started importing Yamaha pianos from Japan in 2002. They normally arrive 16 at a time in a shipping container and we’ve now imported more than 200 containers.

The proper total is over 3,800 pianos. Almost 4,000 Yamaha pianos!

Most have gone to private homes all over the UK. They live with normal families in normal houses. Central heating goes on in winter. Windows get opened in summer. Some rooms are warm, some are cool, some are a bit damp and some are a bit dry. In other words, they are not being kept inside carefully controlled scientific laboratories.

If these pianos had a special weakness caused by moving from Japan to Britain we would be buried in warranty claims. Julie deals with our customer service and I can assure you that people do tell us when something needs sorting out. A sticky key, a squeaky pedal, a note ringing on, a practice felt that needs adjusting. These are normal little piano jobs and we send a tuner to deal with them.

What we don’t get is Japanese soundboards collapsing because they have woken up in Manchester.

There has been no pattern of loose tuning pins, cracked soundboards, failed glue joints or unstable actions caused by the move from Japan to the UK. Zero comeback relating to a humidity difference between the two countries.

I’ve asked the tuners we use and none of them have flagged it as a thing.

Could our business have survived almost 4,000 imported Yamahas if these warnings were true? Of course not. We sell mainly to private customers and our reputation depends on the piano being lovely after delivery, not just looking lovely in the showroom.

Where does the warning come from?

Most of the stuff I read online seems to lead back to America.

This matters because the USA is enormous. It contains humid coastal areas, tropical areas, deserts, cold northern states and places where central heating runs hard for months. The US Geological Survey says that 40% of American land is classed as dryland, meaning arid or semi-arid land where water is scarce.

Britain and Japan are both damp, maritime island countries. America includes places like Arizona and Nevada. They are completely different comparisons.

If a piano technician in an extremely dry part of America tells me that they’ve seen soundboards or pinblocks suffer, I’m happy to believe them. Very dry air is hard on any piano and some technicians have reported problems with imported Japanese pianos in those areas.

But I also found American technicians in humid places saying the grey-market issue was basically a non-issue for them. A Florida technician wrote that he serviced plenty of imported Yamahas and had seen no humidity-related problem beyond the sort of thing he might see in an American-made piano. Another said the local technicians generally agreed there was no special concern in Florida homes that stayed above roughly 35% relative humidity.

That part of the conversation rarely makes it into the sales pitch.

Somewhere along the way, a warning that might be worth discussing in a very dry American home gets copied onto a British website and turns into “Japanese pianos are unsuitable for the UK”. I think that is nonsense.

What do the actual humidity figures say?

I originally had some rough figures for this article saying Britain and Japan averaged around 60% humidity while parts of America averaged 10%. I checked them properly before publishing and those numbers were too crude.

Here are the more useful figures.

Met Office figures for the UK show seasonal outdoor averages of about 79% in spring, 79% in summer, 84% in autumn and 85% in winter. That works out at roughly 82% across the year.
The Japan Meteorological Agency gives Tokyo an annual average of 65%, moving from 51% in January to 76% in July. Other Japanese cities in its table range from 63% to 73% annually.
The US Geological Survey classes 40% of American land as dryland.

So the UK is actually more humid outdoors than Tokyo on these figures. That doesn’t mean the climates are identical and it doesn’t mean every house in Britain has 82% humidity inside it. It simply shows how silly it is to describe Japan as the humid place and Britain as some frighteningly dry destination on the other side of the world.

The figures also explain why the loudest warnings come from America. Parts of America really are very dry. Britain isn’t.

What humidity actually does to a piano

A piano contains lots of wood, felt, cloth, leather and metal. The wood takes in and releases moisture as the air changes around it. The felt and cloth can swell or shrink a little. Metal can rust in very damp conditions. Every acoustic piano does this, including brand new ones.

Yamaha’s own piano-care guidance recommends roughly 40–45% relative humidity and warns about both excessive moisture and excessive dryness. The Piano Technicians Guild says something similar and explains that changes in the soundboard can move the pitch up and down through the seasons.

This is why your piano tuner may find the piano slightly sharp after a humid spell and slightly flat after a dry one. It’s normal piano behaviour.

The important climate is the climate around the piano. A new European-market piano placed next to a large radiator can have a much harder life than a Japanese U3 standing on an inside wall in a normal British sitting room.

Central heating lowers indoor relative humidity. Underfloor heating can be a problem if the piano is sitting directly above it. A damp basement can cause the opposite trouble. None of those things can be predicted from the country written on the original sales paperwork.

There is another point about the wood itself.

Wood gradually adjusts to the air around it. Wood scientists call this equilibrium moisture content, which is a complicated name for a simple thing. If the air around wood changes and stays changed, the moisture level in the wood gradually moves towards the new conditions.

So even if Yamaha originally dried some wooden parts to different moisture targets for different markets, that moisture level is not frozen into the piano for the next 40 years. The piano has been exchanging moisture with its surroundings ever since it left the factory.

I’m not claiming that Yamaha have never made any production changes for different markets. They may well have done. I’m saying that the existence of a manufacturing process does not prove that a used Japanese Yamaha will fail in Britain. Our experience says it won’t.

Will the soundboard crack?

Any wooden soundboard can crack if it is exposed to severe dryness or repeated big changes in humidity.

We inspect the soundboards, bridges and general structure of our pianos as part of the preparation process. After selling more than 3,800 imported Yamahas, we have not found a UK soundboard problem caused by these pianos coming from Japan.

If somebody is warning you about soundboards, ask how many Japanese Yamahas they have personally sold into British homes and what failure rate they have recorded. That’s a fair question.

Will the tuning pins come loose?

Tuning pins can become loose because of age, pinblock condition, previous treatment or serious dryness. A technician can check the pin torque and tuning stability of an individual piano.

The words “Japanese market” don’t tell you whether the tuning pins are tight. Testing the piano does.

Will the keys stick?

They might occasionally. Keys stick on all sorts of pianos.

We have a page on our website listing the little issues and niggles that can appear after any piano is delivered into a new home. These include sticky or slow keys, keys catching the practice felt, notes ringing on, squeaky pedals and buzzing notes. The piano settles after delivery, then the tuner deals with anything that needs easing or regulating during the first tuning.

That isn’t the piano failing to cope with Britain. It is a mechanical instrument settling after being moved.

What about glue joints, rust and tuning stability?

Serious dryness can stress glue joints in any piano. Very damp conditions can encourage rust. Seasonal changes affect tuning because the soundboard moves slightly as its moisture level changes.

Again, we see no special UK pattern attached to Japanese Yamahas. Keep the piano in a sensible place, have it tuned regularly and these are ordinary maintenance questions rather than reasons to reject the piano.

What about spare parts?

This gets mixed into the humidity argument but it is a separate question.

Some Japanese domestic models have slightly different specifications and an inexperienced general dealer might not recognise every model. Yamaha’s own serial-number guidance can cause confusion too. We’ve even had a customer nearly reject a genuinely Japanese U1H because they thought the H meant it was made in China. I wrote a separate article explaining why every Yamaha U1H and U3H was made in Japan.

We specialise in these pianos. Many action materials and service parts are standard piano-industry items and we know how to source or fit what is required.

I would always buy an imported piano from somebody who understands the model and is going to support it after the sale. That matters much more than the grey-market label.

Why do people keep repeating it?

This is my opinion, based on more than 20 years in the trade.

The loudest warnings nearly always seem to come from dealers selling brand new Yamahas, particularly in America, or from dealers repeating the same material elsewhere.

I can’t know the motive of every dealer and I’m not suggesting that everybody is sitting in a secret meeting planning what to say. Some will simply believe what they have been told.

But the commercial benefit is obvious. A properly reconditioned Japanese U1 or U3 competes with a brand new piano. I’ve written separately about why I think a used Japanese U1 or U3 is often a better buy than a new budget Yamaha. If the used Japanese piano is bigger, better built and better value at the customer’s budget, the new-piano dealer needs a reason to take it out of the comparison. A warning about hidden future damage does that very effectively.

The language helps too. “Grey market” sounds dodgy even though the pianos are genuine Yamaha instruments imported and sold perfectly legally. “Seasoned for destination” sounds very scientific. Put the two phrases together and a perfectly sensible customer starts imagining a soundboard splitting in half during Christmas dinner.

I think UK dealers who repeat the American warning should be able to show UK evidence for it. How many Japanese Yamahas have they sold here? How many suffered climate-related structural failures? What percentage failed? Where are the warranty records?

I can give you our number. More than 3,800 imported Yamahas and zero comeback caused by the humidity difference between Japan and Britain.

What should you check before buying?

Check the actual piano.

Confirm the model, serial number, age and manufacturing country. Look at the soundboard and bridges, check that the tuning pins are healthy and the tuning is stable, look at the hammer wear, play every key, listen to the bass strings and make sure the action feels even. Ask what reconditioning has been done and who did it. Find out what the delivery, tuning, returns and warranty include.

A shiny black cabinet can hide a tired piano, so buy from somebody who has prepared the inside properly and will still answer the phone after delivery.

Those questions are useful whether the piano has come from Japan, London, Leeds or the house next door.

Looking after a piano in a British home

Put it somewhere sensible. Keep it away from radiators, wood burners and fierce direct sunlight. Be careful with underfloor heating and ask us about protection if the piano needs to stand above it. Avoid a damp outside wall or unventilated basement.

If your house is unusually dry or damp, buy a little digital hygrometer and see what is actually happening. Stable conditions matter more than chasing one perfect number every hour. If the reading regularly goes very low or very high, speak to a piano technician about room control or a system fitted to the piano.

Then have the piano tuned and serviced regularly. That is good advice for every acoustic piano ever made.

Judge the condition of the piano, the quality of the reconditioning and the reputation of the seller. After almost 4,000 imported Yamahas, I am completely comfortable putting my name and our lifetime warranty behind them.

If you are working out which Yamaha models to consider, you can download our free buyer’s guide below. It covers U1s, U3s, Japanese domestic models, newer budget Yamahas and the questions I think you should ask before buying.

Download our free Yamaha Piano Models & Buyer’s Guide

Any questions just email us and I’ll be happy to help.

Many thanks
Mark

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