Humidity and Your Guitar:
Humidified Guitar Case
One of the most devastating elements that can affect your guitar is the exposure of the instrument to extreme changes in humidity. While very damp conditions can have adverse effects on our instruments, it is mainly dry air in which we have to safeguard our precious fragile instruments.
Dry Air Effects On Acoustic Guitars:
Excessive dry atmosphere can cause the following problems to even a very well-made guitar:
Cracks in the solid wood tops, backs and sides.
Bridge separation from the top.
Braces either cracking or coming loose or both.
Top warping or bellying.
Neck warping.
Change in string action.
Frets sticking out of edge of fretboard.
Cracks developing in fretboard.
Is that enough to scare anyone who just laid out $3,000 for a quality Martin, Taylor or even worse a good handmade instrument.
Cause of Low Humidity:
If you live in a cold weather state, in other words, you depend on a heating plant to keep you toasty warm during the winter, you are likely to have low humidity problems with your guitar, unless you one of the humidifiers that we discuss in the article.
Can’t figure out why you have low humidity when the weather forecast reports that the relative humidity is 70%? Well, that is the level outdoors, but it certainly is not that indoors.
The most common method of heating our homes, offices and other occupied spaces is by means of a gas flame or electrical element. The problem with this is as cold air is passed over a flame, the air completely dries out and there is viturally now relative humidity left in the air. As this blows into our occupied spaces, the humidity level drops to a very low and unhealthy level.
Measuring Low Humidity:
Your first step in correcting the humidity level in your home is to get a baseline of what the humidity level is in the area your instrument will reside.
First, purchase a quality hygrometer or humidity gage, such as the Chaney Thermometer and Humidity Gage, which will not only give you a constant readout of your humidity, many are available with alerts to warn you when the humidity or temperature drops below a pre-set level.
What is the optimum Humidity Level?
Typically, in the winter, it is very difficult to get the humidity in our homes much above 30%. If you go above that value, you will find that the possibility of mold build-up starts to become a concern, as well as condensation forming on windows and doors.
Most guitar shops, both small luthier shops and large production facilities keep a close watch on the humidity, and the humidity range from high to low will be very tight. Usually this factor is between 35% and 45%. Therefore if you keep your humidity within that range you will of course not have any problems at all. Even if the humidity occasionally dips below the 25-30% level, you should not have a problem. It is when the humidity drops below 25% for an extended time that you are asking from trouble.
How To Change Humidity Levels:
There are basically 3 ways to bring up the humidity levels in our homes during the winter.
Whole Home Humidifier: This one is dependent on what type of heating/cooling equipment you have in your home. For the typical gas-fired furnace with supply and return ductwork, your choice is to place a humidifier on the return ductwork near the furnace. This is often electrically operated and is tied into the furnace fan with low voltage controls. Also, in order to make them relatively free from constant montitoring, the humidifier fill is piped to your water supply system.
Room Humidifiers: If you keep your guitar in a specific place in the home, you may want to consider one of these units in your guitar studio. These units bring up the humidity to 40 to 50% and gets you in the guitar ‘comfort zone’ very quickly.
In-Case Humidifiers: These type of humidifiers require that you mainly store you guitar in the case, which is not a bad idea. The only problem with this is I prefer to keep you guitars out and accessible to pick up and play at any time.
Recommendations:
No one should be exposed to extreme low humidity in the winter. It is not healthy for you, for you home or your instruments. If you don’t have one I would highly recommend that you install a whole-home humidifier on your furnace. Humidity levels can dip down to the 10 to 15% range and your woodwork will start to crack and pull apart, you nose will be dry and you will be more suseptable to viruses.
Since it may not be possible to bring your home humidity levels up to the 40% level, I would recommend that you install a second line of defense in your guitar case. One of my favorites is the Oasis 6 model of guitar case humidifiers.
The Oasis clearly shows you when to refill the humidifier, it securely fastens to the inside of your case with a clip and magnet system, and clearly indicates the humidity level within the case.
