Humidifiers (warm or cool?)

[snoglobe]

Living in Edmonton, where the furnace is extensibly on for 8 months of the year, what sort of humidification protection should I have for my guitars?

Hwy 1 Tele (maple), Strat (rosewood), BJA LP jr, SG standard, Danelectro RI, and a More or Less Paul (80's clone with Gibson pups and guts)

They all hang on the wall. If I put them in a case, I'm inclined to sell them not play them.

I currently have a warm mist humidifier on a very low setting in the 10x12 office where they live. The heat vent into the room is set to about 1/3 open so it never gets too hot in there. It's also in the basement so it's cool in the summer.

Is this good enough to get the job done? Or is cool mist better?

 

[ted s]

I can't see it making a difference, I bought a unit humidifier a couple years ago and opted for the cool one, only because I figured less parts to fail, no heating element etc..

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Good question. I've been wondering about that too lately. I live in a high elevation desert so yeah it's dry here. Furnace and wood heat in winter. We've got the cold vapor type humidifiers in the house but I don't think those are good for guitars especially acoustics.

 

[Katastrophe]

I don't know about y'all, but it's sufficiently humid here in Central Texas that I discovered recently that the soundhole in my beater acoustic has warped significantly. I keep it inside at all times, but our temperature / humidity has gone through some big extremes lately.

 

[Jampy]

I've been pretty lucky I have about 500 Gallons of Aquariums in my basements along with my Geetars.

 

[Cal]

I currently have a warm mist humidifier on a very low setting in the 10x12 office where they live. The heat vent into the room is set to about 1/3 open so it never gets too hot in there. It's also in the basement so it's cool in the summer.

Is this good enough to get the job done? Or is cool mist better?

snoglobe, I'd just make sure that your humidity is fairly constant (probably around 50% RH). Do you have a hygrometer to check this? If not get a digital model (more accurate than analogs) and stick it on the wall beside your guitars. Here's an inexpensive one.

 

[Plank_Spanker]

My humidifier is cold vapor. As long as it's not blasting right onto the guitars it won't hurt a thing. Try to keep your room around 50 percent RH and at a comfortable temperature.

 

[KrisH]

We put humidifiers in each room, either the cool mist type or the evaporative type. There might be a guitar, fiddle, lap harp, or some other kind of instrument sitting around in any of the rooms. Dreadman could tell you all about the dangers of letting an instrument dry out in the winter, and I have seen the results myself, too. Plus, they also help keep me from getting nosebleeds in the winter. It's good to have the kind that automatically shuts off once a certain level of humidity is reached.

 

[mrmudcat]

As stated I keep it about 50-55%

 

[wingsdad]

...I live in a high elevation desert so yeah it's dry here...

Me, too, Tone. 3,500' or so above sea level, 6" of precipitation annually, with about 4" of that between Dec. & Feb.

First of all, I don't keep anything cased and smothered.

The RH inside my house is almost constantly 30-35%. Solid bodies are fine on the wall even at that RH. But I have a little one-gallon cool mist humidifier that I load with distilled water and run in the 10x12x9 room for an hour or so a few times a week to 'dampen' the room to about 50% (it drops to 40 in 2 days), because I also hang an Ovation with a long Dampit stuck in one of its epaulet soundholes to keep the solid top happy, and a solid maple Mando and laminated koa Uke with little Dampits, as well as a laminated Reso ('dobro') as-is (lots of metal I don't want moistend).

I figured out a system 10 years ago after nearly losing my ancient Guild D40 to inattentiveness for my other acoustic and hollow/semi-hollow guitars. They're in a home-made cabinet in a walk-in closet, that the same humidifier gets parked in to run on the same schedule as the room to dampen the closet. Each roundhole acoustic guitar has a Kyser Lifeguard soundhole humidifier, with f-holed guitars getting little Dampits. (All charged weekly with distilled water).

The closet door stays closed to keep the closet and cabinet temp around 68 degrees F., the RH in the cabinet sits at 45% or so, and the harem is happy.

Pictures of the setup