Annual PSA on humidity control in central and northeast / winter climes

chazmo

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Hi folks,

Chazmo, your friendly neighborhood moderator here with a brief public service announcement...

Temps are dropping and heating systems are turning on out my way in central Massachusetts. Time to fire up the humidifiers, folks. Our solid-wood Guilds (as with all guitars) are susceptible to humidity changes. The baseboard heating system in my house can, for example, take RH down to low/mid 20% range during the winter.

So.... PSA: Take a lesson from someone who cracked two heirloom guitars back when I was ignorant about this.... Keep the humidity up into the high 40s to low 50s if you can. I use a room humidifier and keep my guitars cased during the winter months.

Fondest wishes for an "uneventful" guitar winter. :).
 

silverfox103

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Good reminder!

I keep a small humidity gauge on my desk right by my keyboard. It has a "comfort zone" of about 35 to 50 percent humidity. It's probably at 37 / 38 percent now, so I'm watching it closely. As soon as it's out of the comfort zone, on goes the humidifier.

Tom
 

davismanLV

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Good to remind everyone, Charlie!! Down to 20%? Well, you know where I live and today we're blessed with overcast and cloud cover and the RH is a whopping 29%!! Usually it's around 10-12% at this time of year. The humidifiers are struggling to maintain 35-40%. At least the a/c isn't kicking in to take it even lower and we haven't turned the heat on yet. It's 62 right now and going up to 76 today. The struggle is real here in the desert!! (y)
 

Nuuska

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At this moment

- outside 4,7C - 95%
- inside 20C - 38%

Winter coming it will be most likely dryer inside in a month.
 

gjmalcyon

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I replaced all of the magic crystal beads inside all my Oasis humidifiers a couple of weeks ago.

What came out can be best characterized as Oasis boogers.

If the Oasis humidifiers were breathing through their noses in a dust storm of Dust Bowl intensity for a really long time.

The new magic crystal beads all plumped up with water within a minute.
 

chazmo

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Sounds gross, gj! Ick.

I just use water in mine. But the wicking filters do definitely get gross. Not booger gross, but let's say a bit slimey gross.
 

HeyMikey

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Great reminder. Got my humidifiers cleaned and going last week to try to get ahead of the change. Room units in the upstairs bedrooms, DIY soap dish water bead units in every case, and a large 6 gal humidifier for the downstairs. The battle has begun!
 
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Nuuska

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In the old days - about 40-60 years ago - everybody living in a place w central heating - built w hot-water-filled radiators - used to have flat open containers hanging on them radiators. They were filled w water and it evaporated.

Were they in use on that side of the pond ?
 

HeyMikey

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Yep. I remember my grandmother doing it in her old house which had those radiators.
 

fronobulax

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I grew up with radiators like this.

radiator_sm.jpg

Current house has steam radiators as well but they look like electric base board heaters until you look closely.
 

gjmalcyon

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Single pipe steam in our house. Replaced the boiler and DHW when we moved from fuel oil to natural gas 6+ years ago. Had all the radiators removed, media blasted, and powder coated - they look fabulous.

We have a towel rack immediately above the radiator in our upstairs bathroom. She Who Must Be Obeyed owns that towel rack so she gets a heated towel after her shower.

There is something sinfully wonderful about pulling on a pair of jeans that spent time drying on a radiator. But mind the zipper and top button if its brass - they can get hot.
 
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