Room humidifiers

Al Watsky

I'm at 50% . Evap system. No problem.

Jeff Moore

Wim
"Duke it out" is the right characterization for forced air vs humidifier.
I live with a gravity air furnace. Very old school. No fan. The cold air falls back to the furnace from upstairs and the hot air rises from the furnace (again only upstairs). The "pipes" are a foot and a half in diameter. It is analogous to forced air.
My guitars and me live in the basement for this reason where "gravity" - convection, doesn't work because the furnace is in the basement and rising hot air and falling cold air don't go anywhere.
I have a shelf sized Holmes humidifier which holds maybe 1/2 gallon spewing vapor 24/7 into a closed room 8 x 24 with a very small electric heater. There's a tap nearby and I fill the Holmes every day in the winter.
Me and the guitars lived upstairs for a while but the "not-forced" air heat was just too fierce.
It seems that if the air in your and my system is being gathered from all over the house (except my basement) and dispersed back all over the house (except basement) from our furnaces, the humidifier is then trying to humidify the whole house. My basement is unheated, except it doesn't get cold because the furnace is down here (and convecting warmth) without any air movement. Even though the basement room my guitars and me live in is closed off, its only 4 feet from the furnace.
When I live upstairs even a 4 gallon monster humidifier couldn't always "duke it out" with my furnace and I was breaking my shoulders carrying water to feed it. There was frozen water all over the inside of the windows in the guitar room too. Kinda destructive.
If you've got a basement room that isn't forced air, live there and supplement the temperature with a room heater. My $10 heater and my $40 Holmes "duke it out" nicely.
If there's no isolated basement room for your guitars, you might think of blocking off the registers (air outlets) in the guitar room and supplement heating with a small heater and humidifying as well.
I don't case my favorite guitars either, just play them. There's four of them uncased and within arms reach of my chair here as I write.
The guitars haven't quit moving" entirely, but compared to living upstairs in a room not isolated, the movement is quite minimal. The humidity (as measured by a cheap analogue hydrometer) goes through a 30-50% movement regularly. I'd like it to stay @ 50% but am too lazy to duke it out.

Al Watsky

You have to balance it some how. Not heating the guitar room is one way to get there in the winter. My studio is not heated. My shop is , studio not. Both are maintained at a proper humidity. One takes lots more work than the other. I'm carrying 3 ,3gallon canisters all over the place for the shop. and another set for the studio. Thats what the winter is like around my place.

Bob Holo

Just the opposite for me. It seems I'm constantly emptying DE-humidifiers.

It's not that there is a lot of rain in Oregon, in fact I don't think we're even in the top 10 states for annual rainfall. It's that it all drops at once here. We have reasonably normal... sometimes even arid summers. But in the winter, we average nearly 7" per month with peaks of 12" to 15" and the record is over 20" in one month. A few years ago we nearly set the record for greatest consecutive number of rainy days in Oregon. The record was I think 53 days and people actually felt cheated when we hit 52 and the sun came out on the 53rd day. But... that being said... EVERYONE went outside and wandered around with silly grins, squinting up at that beautiful glowing orb in the sky.

jonpowl

Just saw this USB Bottle Cap Humidifier. It might help while on vacation, tour, dorm room, etc. Has anybody tried it?

Bones

I don't worry too much about the house. I keep them in a hard case with a case humidifier. Some that I don't play too much I also keep in a closed closet with a quart size tub with a saturated rag in it in addition to the case humidifier. Keep em humidified in the case when not playing and u shouldn't have to worry about the whole room unless they are out of the case all the time.