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Humidifier options


7enderbender

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Living in New England creates a battle with humidity - bone dry in the winter, humid in July/August. Both bad for guitars. 
Does anyone have a good recommendation that doesn’t entail “ultrasonic” cool mist which leaves mineral deposits all over the place (which get sucked into the fans of my rack gear etc). 
There are the simple warm mist thingies but they gunk up quickly. How do you guys deal with it? No central air in my house.
 
 

 

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If you have steam heat radiators -  you can find shallow (1")  pans that will fit on them. The accelerated evaporation will help.    If you need to, for your music room at least, you can find a Radiator Cover that will enclose the pan of hot water, which at the same time has a lid that can be propped up let the evaporation rise.     

We no longer have radiators - so I just use a regular  mist type humidifier.  

Edited by fortyearspickn
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The warm mist/vaporizer type things really are a less risky way to go, as opposed to soundhole humidifiers. Humidipaks are better now, still expensive, relatively short-lived, and generally a pain if you try to revive them.

The warm mist humidifiers last longer if your water has less minerals in it. The closer you can get to distilled ($), the better. Even running your water through a Brita filter would help. And everyone and everything in the house benefits from being anywhere near 45% humidity.

At 275 Watts and maybe $.061/kWhr, you're looking at about $2.82/wk for each warm mist humidifier you run, + some increase in the power transmission capacity charge on your electric bill.

I suppose that 275W would be max power consumption on the highest setting of the humidifier.

Edited by JWG4927
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34 minutes ago, JWG4927 said:

The warm mist/vaporizer type things really are a less risky way to go, as opposed to soundhole humidifiers.

 

I got one of these two or three years ago and it's really the best small humidifier I've had.

https://www.honeywellpluggedin.com/honeywell/honeywell-warm-mist-humidifier

Went through several of the Ultrasonic ones, after a few months they always fail. I have well water, so maybe that's the problem? Used the kind with the big wick/filters for several years. They worked OK, but those filters are expensive and need replacing every month or so. But this warm mist one has really been trouble-free. Yes, there is a build-up of scale on the heating element but that's easy enough to clean. I have a studio/workspace separated from my bedroom/bath with a partition, total of over 300 square feet. This humidifier can keep it at around 50% humidity while the next room (with my woodstove, which is my primary heat) is 30% or less. In fact - thanks for reminding me, I just ordered another one of these from Amazon ($33) to put in the other room!

I keep my guitars out on open stands in the little studio and haven't had any problems. But, as they say, "your mileage may vary". 🙂

Edited by Boyd
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ya I get it..

It's way too dry here (I'm in New England too) and I'm done trying to reverse engineer moisture during the winter.

Much easier to keep them cased with sound hole and case humidifies.  (Travel soap cases with sponges up by the head stock, Oasis tubes in the sound holes....)

 

 

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19 minutes ago, kidblast said:

ya I get it..

It's way too dry here (I'm in New England too) and I'm done trying to reverse engineer moisture during the winter.

Much easier to keep them cased with sound hole and case humidifies.  (Travel soap cases with sponges up by the head stock, Oasis tubes in the sound holes....)

 

 

My new 1957 SJ-200 came with a D'Addario 2-way humidification system included in the case.

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I am in South Carolina where it is normally very humid.  I got a little Hygrometer and found that my guitar cases really help in keeping the guitars at about the correct humidity.  In the late summer inside my cases the humidity got up to almost 60% which I felt was too high.  I got a bunch of silica gel packs and put them in the cases and even suspended them from the strings down into the body of the guitars.  Got them down to about 50% with that method.

A month ago it started getting cold enough to run the heat most of the day and night and the humidity in the room where my guitars are has gone down to as low as 33%.  But if I put the hygrometer inside the cases they still measure between 45% and 48%.  So the cases seem to really hold humidity in.  When the readings inside the cases get too low I will use D'Addario humidipack system to bring it up. 

So my what my experience tells me is to monitor the humidity inside your guitar cases (it may not be as bad as you think) and by all means keep your guitars in the cases, don't store them on stands or hanging on the wall in the winter when the heat is on all the time.

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I've got a cool mist humidifier, small. probably cost $40, been using it for 8 or 9 winters.  I only use Distilled Water.  Turn it on when the hygrometer drops to 39% at half speed until it gets the room up to 50 - 55%.  Thing to remember is - you're not just humidifying the air.  You're humidifying everything in the room that has dried out. So, it will take as much as a day, depending on the size of the room.  Take wood floors for example.  Leather chair.  It's easier to keep humidity stable than to try to play catch up.  Certainly keeping the case humidified with the guitar in it is more practical if you don't have a separate room.  

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17 hours ago, Brucebubs said:

My new 1957 SJ-200 came with a D'Addario 2-way humidification system included in the case.

I find that if I don't use a dampit in the soundhole, and a sponge travel case with holes drilled in it with a damp sponge up at the head stock, those get rock hard in about 3 weeks.

since they are a 2 way system tho, I seem to be in good shape with my 514NY since that's what I use for that one   just about everything else, gets an oasis tube. (And the travel case/sponge thingy)

Thing is, *I* feel much better in a properly humidified room. And the guitars like it too. 😂

That's true..  just very hard to accomplish in my environment

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Down here in Atlanta I have been using the "Humidi" packs with great success. I have tried the sponge in the soap case, and the Music Nomad sound hole humidifiers in the past. I have since been using the Humidi packs  for the past several years, and I only need to change them out every 3-4 months once they get hard

 

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