SE Hollowbody IIs and humidity

H

Hotspur

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I live in Los Angeles, so the humidity rarely gets THAT low, but it's been in the 30s all day today and has dipped (very briefly) as low as 25 a few days ago.

For my acoustic, I have a sound hole humidifier - one of the little sponge things in a plastic hanger.

I generally don't worry about my solid-body electrics (SE Chris Robertson and a partscaster Strat.)

I'm not sure how concerned to be about my SE HBii. I know laminate guitars are less susceptible to humidity changes than solid wood ones, but should I be looking for some sort of humid pack for it? (Obviously, the same sort of thing I have for my acoustic won't work). I'm getting a new multi-guitar stand (no dogs or toddlers in the house) and am considering if it's okay to leave the HB out of it's case.

Would love to hear people's thoughts about all this.
 
SEs are laminated with a block under the bridge, they won’t be affected like an acoustic in terms of having the bridge sink or the body crack. But any guitar, solid or otherwise, will exhibit adverse effects from prolonged exposure to very low or high humidity in terms of tuning stability or developing sharp fret ends, etc.

In LA I think you’ll be fine but if you wanted to take an extra step Oasis make a humidifier that clips inside the case near the headstock, similar to the ones that go in an acoustic sound hole. Or get a room humidifier and be prepared to clean it diligently.
 
Humidity is a bit of a worry for me. In the winter I can control my current room with a small humidifier as long as we're home on our regular schedule with work etc. Summer is usually ok since it stays around 40-50% with no assistance; we seldom need to run the a/c during summer (we use just a couple small room units) in our local climate, except for last summer but that was just way out there, so the moisture extractors don't really factor in much. But during winter with the heat on full bore constantly (-30 to -40*c isn't uncommon around here) running full bore every day, it's virtually impossible to keep the whole house at anywhere in the 30% range. We have radiant heating and a wood burner so no forced air with a ducted humidifier system to help balance the humidity. With no trips in the near future given current travel issues all is well. But if we ever do get to head for the Caribbean again for some diving for a couple weeks, that is a worry. Not a problem if we were to have a house sitter while gone, but that's not always an option. When I only had a couple guitars I could case them and they were fine, but I don't have enough cases for each one to store them for weeks on end, and then there's always the extra room required for more cases/gear. I've already resigned myself to setting up a music room in the basement in the near future to free up the spare room again, but that still doesn't solve the humidity factor...
 
It's a pain on the a$$ but I went and got a 1 gallon humidifier for my guitar room ... I keep it running all day/night to keep the humidity around 40-45% ... I live in Las Vegas where normal indoor humidity is about 25% .. I case up the guitars if I'm traveling longer than 2 days and can't keep the room humidified..
 
sjsamaha said:
It's a pain on the a$$ but I went and got a 1 gallon humidifier for my guitar room ... I keep it running all day/night to keep the humidity around 40-45% ... I live in Las Vegas where normal indoor humidity is about 25% .. I case up the guitars if I'm traveling longer than 2 days and can't keep the room humidified..
Click to expand...
And I live in Massachusetts, from Spring through Fall I need to run a DEhumidifer 24/7. It pulls a couple of gallons of water every day :cool:
 
I’ve started running a humidifier in the winter. I just moved into a town house where the humidity gets down to 30% in the winter. My luthier keeps his shop at 50%, so that’ll be my winter benchmark. The rest of the year, it’s 65% or higher here in the DMV marshland.
 
In my guitar room I run a 2 gal Honeywell that keeps things pretty stable at 42-45%. Running on the medium setting a tank of water lasts about 2 days, less if I have to increase the output on the unit. I also can't run our well water in it because the mineral content wrecks the absorbent filter pads in short order. So I haul 3 gal jugs back from town whenever I have to go in for errands. Doesn't solve the away time issues, but if it's only a few days I can turn the unit output down another notch and it will last for about 3 days and not drop much below 40%. My guitars all stay in tune much better with the humidity at a stable level and so much better for them in general. My Hollowbody doesn't seem any more finicky than any of my acoustics in that regard.
 
I use Honeywell unit in the winter, I'm in Canada. I have 3 different hygrometers, one of which is digital, one is analog, and one is a set of sensors that I can see with my phone no matter where I am on the planet and it warns me if the room goes too dry or wet. I'm not taking chances. I don't have extreme humidity swings were I live so it's not a huge issue. My guitars rarely go out of tune as the room is kept between 45-55 all year. I use a simple dehumidifier or ac in the summer.
 
I’ve been using these in my acoustic and HB cases. It’s been a year and I’m happy with them.

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i have a maple and a hog SE hb. I never have a problem with them compared to any of my other PRSi, which is to say that once per year all of my guitars go a tad sharp at the same time, and once a year they all go a tad flat. i keep the hog near my tv chair, and the maple down in the studio with the rest of the crew. i do run a studio humidifier during the winter but not upstairs
 
Never had much of a problem in LA or SF but now that I have some nicer guitars there might be some humidipacks for this coming winter.
 
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