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Old 01-02-2015, 02:08 PM
MrBJones MrBJones is offline
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Default Room humidifiers

I'm thinking about hanging my guitars on the wall in a roughly 11x10 room. For a room humidifier to be effective, does the door need to be closed? Rest of the house never goes below 20% in the winter, usually stays around 30%,± 5%. Thanks!
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Old 01-02-2015, 02:14 PM
Lacks Focus Lacks Focus is offline
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If you don't want to take any chances, then, yes, close the door.

Or try it open, and keep an eye on a hygrometer located in the guitar room. See where it ends up.
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Old 01-02-2015, 03:56 PM
Kip Carter Kip Carter is offline
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I just got back from going shopping for a room humidifier! LOL so this grabbed my attention....

My take would be to watch it. I would make sure you get a humidifier with a humidistat on it to drive it to maintain an minimum level automatically. So, try it. If the humidifier can maintain a reasonable range of humidity you're good and it would make the air near by that much more moist.

The only down side would be that you will likely have to refill it more frequently as you'll be humidifying more than just the air in the room.
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Old 01-02-2015, 04:20 PM
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El Conquistador El Conquistador is offline
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You might want to look at this thread: http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=366007

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Old 01-02-2015, 04:27 PM
flaggerphil flaggerphil is offline
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This is the one I used to use. Really! I stopped using it when I moved to Florida.

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Old 01-02-2015, 04:58 PM
duluthdan duluthdan is offline
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I live in the semi-arid Rocky Mountains where the humidity often hangs in the single digits for weeks. I keep the door closed to my 12x 14 space, even have a thick whatchamacallit on the bottom rail of the door for a bit more seal. Guitars cased. I struggle to maintain 30+ in the winter. http://www.amazon.com/Essick-Air-H12...V5SVTKJF24WHFS
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Old 01-02-2015, 05:18 PM
Dru Edwards Dru Edwards is offline
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I keep the door to my guitar room closed to keep the humidity level constant. Keeping it open means my humidifier runs more often.
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Old 01-02-2015, 05:30 PM
ericcsong ericcsong is offline
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I recently bought this for my home:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/AIRCARE-3...9?N=5yc1vZc4lv

I used to use an air-o-swiss but I wasn't a fan of filling the unit then flipping it to fit on the base.

The essick is front fill which is super convenient. It also can hold 3.5 gallons which means less refilling!

This humidifier has 9 speeds which is convenient and is pretty quiet on lowest setting.

Everything is digital and the only drawback is that you can only set humidity by increments of 10.

I set it at 50 and the room seems to stay around 45 with the heat running
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Old 01-02-2015, 05:30 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBJones View Post
I'm thinking about hanging my guitars on the wall in a roughly 11x10 room. For a room humidifier to be effective, does the door need to be closed? Rest of the house never goes below 20% in the winter, usually stays around 30%,± 5%. Thanks!
Hi MrBJones...

We use evaporative humidifying in two rooms of our house (open pans filled with water on a heating element) and there are no doors to close between either of those rooms and the rest of the house. My guitars live in one of the two rooms, and it is the room where I play, practice and teach.

Both rooms stay at levels safe for guitars, though they are not at the same level of humidity, even though they are adjacent. I'm sure air flow accounts for part of the differences.

We've used lots of different styles of humidification, and have never worried about the doors. In fact, air flow keeps mold and mildew in check, and rooms from smelling of swamp.


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Old 01-02-2015, 05:38 PM
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Below 40 is dangerous. Sears sells a 2 tank humidifier which works well. I live in a large condo and just keep the place at 48 rather than mess with keeping doors closed.depends what your home layout is like but get a good hygrometer as well.
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Old 01-05-2015, 08:43 AM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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More humidity (not high humidity!) is better for health too, so consider humidifying your whole house.
I just got this Aircare model, it has settings for 5 degree increments. I keep it set for 40, and then use in-case/in-guitar sponge-type humidifiers to get them up to the 45-50% RH range.
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Old 01-05-2015, 09:46 AM
PTC Bernie PTC Bernie is offline
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Default Humidifier

You might want to look into whole house humidifiers. I had one when I lived in Illinois and it did a great job in the winter when it's typically a real problem keeping the humidity where you want it.

Units that go on your furnace are easy to install and maintain and you don't have to worry about running out of water if you go away on trips.

Just my less than humble opinion.
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Old 01-05-2015, 09:55 AM
DesertTwang DesertTwang is offline
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Depends on the humidifier. Here is a base line for you: My guitar room is roughly the size you describe, and my room humidifier is this one:

http://jcp.is/1KeG97l

With the door open, there is no chance of keeping the humidity in that room at healthy levels. With the door closed, it shouldn't be a problem. I didn't want to block my two cats from going in and out that room, so I bungied the door to the frame to pull it closed (but not shut) after a cat passes through. In that scenario, the humidifier does a good job.

I would not buy this particular humidifier again, by the way. It works ok after a few years, but needs frequent refills and the humidity-control feature crapped out so it's now either running on low or high, constantly until I switch it off manually.

I also got tired of room humidifiers and their meager output, and just yesterday bought a whole house humidifer off Craigslist. They're not really "whole house" despite being advertised as such, but once they reach a certain size and output volume, they seem to be able to control humidity much better. I think you'll find that with a small unit in a closed room, the humidity is going to fluctuate a lot unless you have a unit whose humidity control works flawlessly. I wouldn't even think about using a humidifier that doesn't have the auto-control feature in a closed room. I also ran into the issue that the furnace would heat my closed guitar room to unbearable levels, unlike the rest of my apartment. So I decided to buy a bigger humidifier that would allow me to leave the door open.

This is the one I bought yesterday: http://local.sears.com/Kenmore-Gallo...117x00001xlpla

So far, it works really well. Very quiet, the auto control feature seems to be great, and I can leave the door open. The humidifier seems to be sizeable enough to humidify the whole apartment.
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Last edited by DesertTwang; 01-05-2015 at 10:00 AM.
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Old 01-05-2015, 10:52 AM
robgarrison robgarrison is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PTC Bernie View Post
You might want to look into whole house humidifiers. I had one when I lived in Illinois and it did a great job in the winter when it's typically a real problem keeping the humidity where you want it.

Units that go on your furnace are easy to install and maintain and you don't have to worry about running out of water if you go away on trips.

Just my less than humble opinion.
+1 on this. After struggling with a room humidifier and excessive hard water I installed an Aprilaire whole house system.
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Old 01-05-2015, 11:22 AM
drguitar001 drguitar001 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBJones View Post
I'm thinking about hanging my guitars on the wall in a roughly 11x10 room. For a room humidifier to be effective, does the door need to be closed? Rest of the house never goes below 20% in the winter, usually stays around 30%,± 5%. Thanks!
My teaching studio is 12 x 14 feet and I use that room to store all my guitars also. I use a cheap hot steam humidifier and fill it twice a day.


The advantage of the hot steam is that you will not be putting bacteria filled moisture into the air and you do not need to completely clean the unit everyday to be safe.

I keep a hygrometer at the far end of the room away from the humidifier and near the door. This way I can keep an eye on the lowest levels of humidity in the room. If I keep the door completely closed on moist days, the humidity can reach pretty high levels (ie. 70%+ humidity). With the door completely open, levels can drop to near 30% on really dry days. I leave the door partially open and levels stay around the 45% level, just where I want them.
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