Humidity

[38Roars]

Any recommendation for room humidifiers and what % is optimum ....,,

 

[Mikegarveyblues]

I'd say 45 - 55% RH is right in the zone.

My music room pretty much hovers at 60% for a large part of the year and i've seen no ill effects on any of my guitar, acoustic or electric. Not sure i'd want it to be much higher than that though.

 

[László]

I've had very good luck for the past few years with an Air-O-Swiss, set to 45% in the winter. No white dust, very easy to clean, no weird odors.

My guitars have stayed in top shape with it.

I've also used one of the steam humidifiers with the mineral pads (to absorb the minerals and prevent the white dust), for years, and it worked very well, but was much harder to clean.

 

[Poffypoffa]

What I've always heard is that if you're comfortable, the guitar is comfortable. . I live in FL, it gets pretty damp at times, and I've never had a guitar affected, and they all hang on my walls. A decent sized evaporative humidifier should do the trick, they all function the same basic way. I wouldn't obsess over %, unless you live somewhere with central heat and you have acoustics sitting out. Electrics especially are less fragile than most assume.

 

[Joseph Hanna]

What I've always heard is that if you're comfortable, the guitar is comfortable. . I live in FL, it gets pretty damp at times, and I've never had a guitar affected, and they all hang on my walls. A decent sized evaporative humidifier should do the trick, they all function the same basic way. I wouldn't obsess over %, unless you live somewhere with central heat and you have acoustics sitting out. Electrics especially are less fragile than most assume.

Relative humidity is a strange beast when it come to the issues of guitars There are countless factors that enter the picture. There is of course the fundamental where and how the guitar was made. Then the absolute truth in that some guitars just are natural battleships when it comes to fighting the effect of humidity, some however so susceptible to humidity problems it only takes days for trouble to rear it's ugly head and worse months to right the ship. It's also apparent that some players aren't educated enough to recognize their guitars are ready to crumble and crack before their very eyes, and some further still don't hear their guitar have (in the summer months) turned into a box filled with socks. Even further still the issue gets clouded with the fact that regions sport wildly varied humidity levels, never mind relative humidity levels. There's always a guy over at the Acoustic Guitar Forum who chimes in "humidity problems are placebos". Of course he's saying that from the porch of his Southern California home. Talk to the guy in the St. Louis river valley were relative humidity levels have to be felt to be believed and you'll get another slant on the issue.

In 2004 I has an opportunity to work with a Taylor repairman. It was on a completely non-related project but we talked about guitars a whole bunch. The SINGLE biggest problem (financial or otherwise) the Taylor guitar company faced was humidity damage to customers guitars. It was the #1 reason guitars were returned to the factory and of course that put Taylor in the unenviable position to repair a whole bunch of guitars in good faith. Truth be told most of those damages were NOT covered under warranty but try to convince a guy who just spent $4000.00 on a Taylor that it was HIS mistake and he'd need to cough up another $3000.00 for an affliction the customer was to "unaware" to realize in the first place. Bob Taylor has gone on to invest highly in viable humidity systems and has been somewhat of a "be aware" crusader when it comes to humidity damages.

I discovered Humdipaks when a guitar of mine went from my friendly confines at home in Los Angeles to the Midwest and the horrors of humidity. The point here is my PRS has been humidity maintained for well over a year now and I honestly don't know if the Angelus is one of "those" battleships or one (like my Breedlove Revival) which collapses at the mere mention of humidity
The old adage of "if your comfortable so is the guitar" applies only to those that haven't yet experienced grave consequences from under (or over) humidification and in truth there are some guitars, in some areas and for some people, that just remain battleships. For many, many, many that is not the case

 

[László]

The truth is that people are most comfortable between 45-55% RH anyway.

So it's all good. I've found that I have zero damage to my guitars at RH levels as low as 40% and as high as 55%. As I near 60, I start to get a bit of swelling with most guitars, and at 35% the fingerboards start to shrink with some guitars.

 

[Joseph Hanna]

The truth is that people are most comfortable between 45-55% RH anyway.

That may be true but "people" don't really have any built in set of checks and balances to adjust should something go way cadiwampus. To suggest (and I'm not saying you are) that folks should trust the " if I'm comfortable then to so is my guitar" method is clearly not a great idea.

 

[László]

That may be true but "people" don't really have any built in set of checks and balances to adjust should something go way cadiwampus. To suggest (and I'm not saying you are) that folks should trust the " if I'm comfortable then to so is my guitar" method is clearly not a great idea.

I completely agree. This is why I use a humidifier set to 45% in my guitar room. And I double-monitor the RH with a digital hygrometer to make sure the RH is correct. The Air-O-Swiss happens to be very accurate, so the two numbers match.

My comment was simply meant to say, "it's also a very comfortable RH for people" so it's worth doing.

 

[Poffypoffa]

That may be true but "people" don't really have any built in set of checks and balances to adjust should something go way cadiwampus. To suggest (and I'm not saying you are) that folks should trust the " if I'm comfortable then to so is my guitar" method is clearly not a great idea.

I suspect this is more true of acoustics than electrics.