Condair strikes a chord with Forth Pipe Organs

Condair strikes a chord with Forth Pipe Organs

Forth Pipe Organs, a specialist pipe organ builder, restorer and maintainer, has been incorporating Condair humidifiers into its projects for over 20 years. Serving a range of clients from large-scale performance venues, such as Edinburgh University’s McEwan Hall (pictured), to schools and church organs around the country, it helps protect instruments from the dangers of dry air, ensuring they remain mechanically stable and tonally consistent.

David Page, Director at Forth Pipe Organs, comments, “Pipe organs are constantly reacting to the air around them. When humidity drops too low, timber components move, leather parts stiffen and tuning stability suffers. Maintaining relative humidity between 40% and 50% is essential for protecting their long-term integrity and performance.”

David continues, “What’s important for us in choosing a humidifier partner is having confidence that they understand the application and that the solution genuinely fits the environment we’re working in. Condair’s range gives us that flexibility. Whether we’re dealing with a large performance venue or a much smaller, more challenging space, Condair’s humidifiers and application advice always help us find the right humidity solution. This allows us to focus on the organ itself, knowing the environmental conditions are being properly managed.”

Steve Hale, Special Projects Contractor for Condair, comments, “It’s been a great pleasure to work with David and his team at Forth Pipe Organs for so many years. They operate across a wide variety of organs, and each environment presents different challenges. In large venues with central air handling systems, humidification is often integrated into the ventilation system, allowing moisture to be evenly distributed throughout the space. This approach helps stabilise humidity levels around the organ without affecting the visual character of the building, which is particularly important in heritage settings.

“By contrast, many church installations and enclosed organ chambers require more localised humidity control. In these situations, compact steam humidifiers with fan-assisted distribution can be positioned close to, or even inside, the instrument, delivering targeted humidification directly to sensitive components. This provides effective protection even where no central ventilation system exists or where heating is used only intermittently.”

Steve concludes, “When selecting the most appropriate humidification solution for a pipe organ project, it’s important to consider not just the size of the space, but how air moves through it and within the organ itself. Ensuring balanced humidity throughout the internals of the organ, rather than in just one area, is critical.”

Forth Pipe Organs offers a comprehensive range of services, including design, restoration, tuning and ongoing maintenance of pipe organs. Its dedicated staff of skilled personnel has over 200 years’ collective experience.

McEwan Hall at the University of Edinburgh

McEwan Hall (pictured above) is a historic ceremonial auditorium owned by the University of Edinburgh. Located on Teviot Place next to Bristo Square in the Southside of Edinburgh, it is renowned as the university’s principal venue for graduations.

The pipe organ in McEwan Hall is one of the hall’s most distinctive features and historically one of the more unusual organs in Britain. The organ was built in 1897 by the innovative British organ builder and inventor Robert Hope-Jones.

A unique feature of the hall is its lack of dedicated space for an organ, prompting Hope-Jones to conceal the instrument in several hidden chambers throughout the building. Organ components are located behind the ceremonial platform, in rooms to the sides of the hall and above galleries and behind screens. Hope-Jones connected the separate pipe sections with electric links, making them work as a single instrument.

The organ has over 2,400 pipes, 4 manuals (keyboards) and a large pedalboard, originally about 46 stops, but later expanded to over 60 stops. From 2010 to 2012 Forth Pipe Organs undertook a major refurbishment, aimed at preserving the historic console while adding modern control systems for reliability and flexibility.

Condair ME evaporative humidifier

McEwan Hall incorporates five small resistive steam humidifiers, each introducing steam directly to areas around the hall, and a large evaporative humidifier, located in the basement's air handling unit.

The Condair ME evaporative humidifier consists of an evaporative module fitted inside the AHU and a control panel located outside. Water is pumped to the top of the evaporative matrix, which then wets the evaporative media, humidifying and cooling the air as it passes through.

Learn more about the Condair ME

Condair in action

Projects and references

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is probably the best-known concert building in Great Britain. Aronud two million guests a year enjoy acoustic cultural delights ranging from rock to classical music. Condair steam humidifiers ensure a perfect humidity in the organ chamber so that wooden parts maintain their integrity and shape, and move over each other perfectly, as they were designed to do.

Royal Albert Hall

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg - Germany

In January 2017, the Elbphilharmonie (or Elbe Philharmonic Hall) was officially opened after about ten years of construction work. Its unique glass facade, which plays on visual associations with sails and ocean waves, has already established itself as a new landmark of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Inside the Elbphilharmonie™s main concert hall, specially-designed and individually-carved wall and ceiling elements provide incredibly precise sound diffusion and perfect acoustics.

The main hall has 2,100 seats in total, and each seat is individually supplied with fresh air. Condair DL hybrid humidifiers ensure comfort for visitors and optimal acoustic conditions for the orchestra.

Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg - Germany

The Glasshouse (formerly Sage), UK

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music is a concert and event center in Gateshead, England, and home to the Royal Northern Sinfonia ensemble and the Academy of Music and Sound. It has three performance halls that seat 1,700, 400 and 200 people respectively.

Condair gas-fired steam humidifiers ensure the optimum atmosphere to preserve the wooden interior and musical instruments, as well as creating a healthy and comfortable room air humidity in the halls.

Philharmonie Luxembourg

The Philharmonie Luxembourg uses the Condair DL hybrid humidifier to ensure precise, hygienic humidity control across its concert halls for optimal acoustics and comfort.

Philharmonie Luxembourg

Opera North sings Condair's praises

A Condair steam humidifier is protecting the valuable orchestral instruments and wooden décor at Opera North’s Howard Assembly Room in Leeds.
The recent renovation of The Howard Assembly Room included wooden paneling and flooring, plus new triple glazed windows and the installation of an air handling unit. Whilst this greatly enhanced the comfort of the venue’s performers and audiences, the lack of natural ventilation proved a concern to Opera North’s resident 54-piece orchestra. Dry air can be detrimental to musical instruments, particularly the strings, woodwind and Steinway grand piano.

Opera North, UK

Steinway & Sons showroom, UK

Steinway & Sons has been renowned for producing the finest pianos since 1853. Passion and commitment, perfection and quality, reliability and “ of course “ an inimitable sound are just some of the characteristics people all over the world associate with these high-quality instruments. The impressive showroom in London Marylebone was recently refurbished. Condair™s steam humidifiers are playing a vital role in maintaining the exceptional craftsmanship involved in the production of Steinway™s famous pianos.

Condair in tune with Steinway

Philharmonie Berlin

The Philharmonie Berlin uses the Condair DL hybrid humidifier to ensure precise, hygienic humidity control that supports acoustics, comfort and reliable hall performance.

Philharmonie, Berlin - Germany

Christ's Hospital Organ

Condair has supplied a Condair CP3 steam humidifier to humidify the school hall organ at Christ's Hospital School near Horsham, ensuring it resonates correctly and remains in tune whatever the weather. Large pipe organs need to have the humidity maintained within their organ chambers in order to preserve the wooden sound boards and sliders. If the air in the organ chamber becomes dry then it will draw moisture from the surrounding wood causing it to suffer dimensional changes. This can cause the sliders to warp and stick, resulting in an unresponsive instrument. By maintaining 55% relative humidity (%RH), the wood is in equilibrium with the air and it retains its moisture content and shape.

Christ's Hospital Organ, Christ's Hospital Organ, England