How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?

Question

Estimate the number of piano tuners working in Chicago. You may not look anything up. Start from facts you roughly know (the city's population, how common pianos are, how often they are tuned, how many a tuner can do in a day) and reason to an order of magnitude. The goal is a defensible number with clearly stated assumptions, not an exact count.

Accepted Answer

Around 100 piano tuners, give or take a factor of two. The chain of estimates. - Chicago has about 3 million people (the wider metropolitan area is nearer 9 million; pick one and say so). - Roughly 2.5 people per household gives about 1.2 million households. - Perhaps one household in 20 has a piano: about 60,000 pianos. (Schools, churches and bars add a few thousand more; ignore or include, it does not change the order of magnitude.) - A piano is tuned about once a year on average (some twice, many rarely): about 60,000 tunings per year. - A tuner does about 4 tunings a day (each takes an ho…

How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?

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