Are you using humidity control products in the case with your acoustic guitar(s)

Hi Mike,

Good product though those of us here on the West cost have pretty constant humidity. What say yee Forumites  in the South or frozen north?

I live in the Northeast where we have low indoor RH  during winter months; and high indoor RH during summer months. Over time, I’ve had a better experience managing the RH of the room where I keep my guitars rather than individual cases. I do not find that I have very tight control with in-case devices. However as I got older and got less tolerant of being uncomfortable (and had time to earn/save money), I’ve outfitted our home with mini-split units that have heating, cooling and drying functions. There are great energy rebates available to install these efficient units. For the last 10 years, I’ve been able to keep my entire house 70-72 degrees F and 48-54% RH for the months of May through October for less than $1/day operating costs.

I do whole-room humidity with an evaporative humidifier. For me, there’s a lot of benefits and it’s really the only feasible thing given I have numerous instruments.

I use the D’Addario humidity packs. Two in the soundhole and one in the headstock area of the case. They keep the level between 45 and 55% depending on the level in the room. SE PA here, so relative humidity is low in the winter and high during the summer months.

’90 Tony Rice.

Best,

Walter

I use em here in tx. With ac my room humidity is a bit high 50-60 during summer. And in 40’s winter. So from what I understand, the paks will moderate the highs and lows. I bought an in case hstat (oasis ht) that fed data to phone for a while but it’s glitchy now.  I’m still working on it. But it showed good levels when it was working.  If I remember correctly there is a great vid out there w Mr. Hoover outlining the benefits of humidi paks. Finally in my area they seem to be lasting quite a while, mitigating cost.

It’s interesting to read this – I recently installed a mini-split in my music room, and truly love it – had some reasonable and very quiet heat during the end of winter, and recently, with this CA heatwave, had some very sweet air conditioning. –

But after rehearsal the other night, I forgot to turn it off, and when I came in a day and a half later, the room was very nicely cool, but it also was under 20% humidity! Yikes!

A quick check of the guitars showed no damage, but they sure were dry! My archtop was flat! So no AC for a while, and I hung a couple wet towels in the room for a couple days. So from now on, I’m gonna be much more careful about checking room humidity whenever I think about running the AC!

Diligent use is wise for sure, oooh the blood pressure! I hope your instruments recover, but Im guessing short exposure should be ok. Mini Splits are a dream in my climate and it would be impossible for me to get my house below 45% humidity given our climate.  I installed Fujitsu mini splits which have a controlled drying function, which gently cools and dries in a selected range and drying shuts down at a low of 45% in any setting. The downside of that function is that the fan speed is locked on a very low speed and as a result doesn’t cool efficiently during 90+ temperature days. Cooling and heating are set to thermostat temperature settings and not high-medium-low, so there is a lot of control over temperature/humidity. In any event, humidity control can be a challenge in any climate. I’m guessing you don’t need much of an assist in your side of paradise. Best of luck.

Here in northern Europe we use radiators to heat in the winter and the summers are moderately humid.  So RH levels are pretty stable.

My instruments needed set ups about 6 months after leaving California (miss you guys, but not the fires!), but they have been fine since (that was 2013, roughly).  [Oh My God.  That was more than 10 years ago!]

I’ve never used case humidifiers.  But I always keep things in the case rather than sitting on a stand,  That helps make any change in humidity slow and gentle rather than abrupt.

Daniel

Daniel,

Great to hear from you, did you get into any of the Olympics? Thought of you often

Looked like everyone in Paris was having a great time, which is a very nice change.  Usually things range from slightly disgruntled to protesting.  😉

But during the Olympics the city was really hard to navigate.  Road closures for events were common.  An acquaintance who works in Paris was told to work from home for the duration of the Olympics.  It was just too difficult to get to the office.

We stayed home and watched the Olympics.  Though we went to see the flame pass through town.  🙂

Daniel