Humidity in your house?

[Addison]

Humidity conditions where I live are horrible for instruments.

I keep a hygrometer in my music room which is located in my basement... without help from a humidifier, humidity will drop as low as 15% in the mid-winter months when it's too cold to have much moisture in the air and the central heating is constantly running, drying things out even further. It gets as high as 55-60% in the Summer, but having central AC keeps it in check... usually hovers right around 50%, which is perfect.

I use a Venta LW25 humidifier with distilled water in my music room all winter to keep it up to 45-55%... it's only about a 150 sq foot room, and the Venta can even have trouble keeping up in the middle of January or February.

If it gets too dry or the Venta can't keep up, I'll pop the door open while my girls take a bath in the bathroom next to my music room. That helps.

 

[arbiterusa]

Is 45 to 55% humidity a good range overall for music gear?

Ideal. Instruments are pretty tolerant...to a point. Seen three guitars destroyed by a dry spell in Colorado - tops just came apart. Seen one destroyed by being kept inside the case on the humid side of Maui; actually had mildew/algae first cover the inside and then grow through the top and out under the finish. Truth be told that looked kind of cool, but the guitar was no longer playable. Hell of a way to lose a 4k acoustic. If the owner had kept it out in the air instead of sealing it in a wet case, it would still be here today.

 

[mellowinman]

With these guys in the house? Humidifiers running constantly during the winter. I like it to be at least 45%. If it got up over 60%, I would become concerned, and possibly invest in a DE-humidifier.

 

[Gaolee]

Most likely temperature. Steel strings expand/contract much more than wood when the temperature changes. The humidity effect on wood is much slower.

My general rule of thumb; If I find the temp and/or humidity uncomfortable I try not to subject my instruments to it. Especially acoustic or hollow body instruments.

Retuning during the winter is pretty common for me. Put the bass in it's case, go to rehearsal or a show, take it out of it's case. It's gone sharp because the strings shrank and tightened. Play for a little while, it's flat because the strings warm back up. Retune. That's the standard operating procedure for me. It's not that much temperature change, either. Just enough to make the out of tuneness audible. To me anyway.

 

[Bigbri]

Are you folks as particular as me when it comes to humidity in your home?

I keep mine around 45-55%....this seems the most comfortable to me.

I have a basement where there are 3, yes 3 dehumidifiers....one is always on for the most part and the other 2 are backups.......my basement would be 70% or above humidity if not for the dehumidifiers.

Is 45 to 55% humidity a good range overall for music gear?

Mine is always btwn 50-60 with nothing running. Theres a new furnace with a humidifier, but I don't know why the previous owner wanted that. I leave it off.

 

[Blister]

Isn't 50% high in real cold areas during the winter. I would think a lot of water would form on windows and maybe mold

 

[Lowendtech]

Isn't 50% high in real cold areas during the winter. I would think a lot of water would form on windows and maybe mold

I think that's pretty high for winter in northern climes. I never seen it (or let it) get that high in winter.

 

[bassmeknik]

In Michigan my home regularly went as low as 10-15% and since having an issue with my acoustic guitar I have run 2 humidifiers during winter months to try and keep it near 40%. This is a hassle refilling them twice a day in severe cold and once a day now. I have realized that the low humidity during winter months causes problems with my acoustic guitars so I have a Planet Waves hygrometer in the music room to monitor the humidity all year long.

After having the bridge separate from the body and taking it to a luthier he told me continuous exposure to humidity levels below 30% was putting my (acoustic) guitars at risk, that said I have never had a problem with my solid body electrics... He recommended at least 40% as a safe minimum. Even that is difficult in the dead of winter here.

 

[Billybladez66]

When I lived in Hawaii its always massively humid...and now here in Alabama it gets plenty humid as well. I've subjected all my basses over the years to outdoor climates from dry cold to sweltering heat and have never had any issues with neck or anything else but wear and tear....so the answer would be I don't regulate nor worry about humidity. If I had a boutique bass I might.....

 

[Addison]

Isn't 50% high in real cold areas during the winter. I would think a lot of water would form on windows and maybe mold

My music room is in the basement, so I don't have that problem because the windows are about 3.5 feet underground (egress) and I have window well covers, so they don't get cold enough to condensate.

However, even when we run humidifiers upstairs in our bedrooms, we cover the windows with cheap heat-shrink plastic and it completely eliminates condensation issues during the coldest winter month temperatures... which are as low as -40°F here.

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[blowinblue]

Where I live in SoCal the humidity is fairly stable, at least inside my home. This hygrometer hangs on the wall in my music room. Inherited it from my Dad. It's probably 40+ years old. The reading ranges between about 44 and 58 depending on the time of year. This unit is not super accurate but gets close enough to track changes. I don't use a humidifier.

Remembered the following thread from last December.

Winter's Coming, Do You Humidify?

M. M.

 

[bassliner50]

Pianos are one of the most susceptible instruments to humidity. Yamaha recommends 50-55% humidity to minimize stress to the instrument. My piano also has a Dampp Chaser installed to help keep Humidity levels stable. This is an active unit that actually monitors, removes or adds humidity. My basses are no where near as sensitive to humidity but they usually occupy the same room as my acoustic piano. Maybe once or twice a year I will tweak my bass truss rod to keep them optimal. Worse thing you can do is keep them in the sun or in a hot car for extended periods. Well no, maybe taking a shower with your bass is possibly worse.

 

[quickfix]

Isn't 50% high in real cold areas during the winter. I would think a lot of water would form on windows and maybe mold

Not at all. If water doesn't form on the bottom 1/2 inch of the window, your house is too dry.
No mold issues here in the frozen north.

 

[angrychair]

I try to keep mine above 40%.

it gets down into the teens or twenties in the dry winter here, and outside in the summer 90% is normal.

Missouri is hard.

 

[Phildevoid]

I don't measure humidity inside my home nor do I own and humudifiers/dehumidifiers. I own one solid top acoustic guitar and it's fine. Otherwise, I don't worry about any of my other instruments including my plywood upright.



Sounds like a homemade version of one of these.

Dampit - The string and wood instrument humidifier to protect against cracking

Hilarious. I agree with the upright. I have an old plywood Kay and it does fine. I don't even give humidity a thought when it comes to that thing. However, I have case humidifiers for my acoustic guitars. I don't even know why I am talking about this. Oh, yeah, plywood. As if plywood ever suffered from a little humidity. I mean it as to rain on plywood to make it unusable.

 

[Dan Bass]

I keep all my gear in my home office where I spend most of my time. In CT the winters are crazy dry from heating the house.....in the summer the dryness is from AC......My solution is a 120 gallon aquarium. The tank loses 10 gallons a week into the air....always very comfy and looks awesome. The fish dont seem to notice when the room shakes.
View attachment 817777

What kind of fish do you got in there? In the 80's me and some friends from school and the neighborhood used to all have a fish tank each and we all used to buy Red Belly Purana's for our tanks, set them up real nice and feed them feeders from the pet store which are goldfish. I had a 55gallon tank with snow white gravel, green plants, shells, long bubblers, a beautiful background picture of a lake with pine trees and snowy mountains with blue sky. Really nice looking with a 210 filter on the side of the tank so when the filtered water pours back in the tank the Purana's would swim into the current and it was like they were just cruising along, but they were stationary, pretty cool I thought. I always wondered how far of a distance they traveled every day.

 

[ChefKen]

I have 4 large Silver Dollars of varying species, Three Indo datnoids, Ornate and Hernrii Polypterus ( dino eels) and a Jadini Arrowana.....some pretty rare fish. I have had some of them for 10 years. The silver dollars are pirahna relatives without teeth. I have kept fish for many years......

 

[sharpbass]

I'm in Denver and it's super dry here. I run a humidifier year round and keep it between 30-35% in my home. Any more than that and water will collect on the windows when the temps drop and run down the windows. It is the perfect humidity for CO. None of my basses get fret sprout.