Dry Climate living

[brilama]

Originally Posted by Birdbrain

You might like my personal method for avoiding the worst effects of Denver's semiarid climate. I own three solid-body acoustics that I love almost equally. So I have an informal rotation schedule that cuts the dry exposure of each by 2/3. Every week or two, another guitar comes out of its case and onto the wall, and goes with me to the the bluegrass jam. Meanwhile, the other two slumber contentedly in hard cases with Oasis humidifiers. It's worked so far!

(Hmm, maybe it would work even better with four guitars. Each would be out in the elements only 1/4 of its life...

I like where your heads at. More guitars solves the problem.

[KevinH]

As far as your next guitar goes, wander into the carbon fiber subform and have a look around. You'll never have to worry about humidity again.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Trust me he lives in Palm Springs , he has a lack of humidity issue .
Wiki :: "Palm Springs has no months that would be considered humid, with some very dry months. The least humid month is June (13.9% relative humidity), and the most humid month is December (30.2%)."

As Dorthy might say "we ain't in Kirkland anymore Toto "

I've mentioned several times I grew up in the high and very dry mountains of northern NM (7000' above sea level). In the winter the outside temperature and relative humidity are in the single digits.

And yet my dad, myself, and thousands of other people had wooden stringed instruments that miraculously survived with no attempt at humidity control. I still play my grandpa's 1880's wooden violin that survived that environment for over a century.

I played in the school orchestra all through grade school, junior high and high school. Hundreds of kids with wooden violins, violas, cellos, basses. Never ever heard of any damage to any of them.

Now i live in a low elevation desert in Washington state. I keep my music room humidified in the dry winter with evaporative Aircare units. I have 24 wooden stringed instruments, ranging from maybe 2 years to over a century old. They're all hanging out on the music room walls. No damage at all in the nearly 30 years I've been here.

[Blackmore Fan]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I've mentioned several times I grew up in the high and very dry mountains of northern NM (7000' above sea level). In the winter the outside temperature and relative humidity are in the single digits.

And yet my dad, myself, and thousands of other people had wooden stringed instruments that miraculously survived with no attempt at humidity control. I still play my grandpa's 1880's wooden violin that survived that environment for over a century.

I played in the school orchestra all through grade school, junior high and high school. Hundreds of kids with wooden violins, violas, cellos, basses. Never ever heard of any damage to any of them.

Now i live in a low elevation desert in Washington state. I keep my music room humidified in the dry winter with evaporative Aircare units. I have 24 wooden stringed instruments, ranging from maybe 2 years to over a century old. They're all hanging out on the music room walls. No damage at all in the nearly 30 years I've been here.

Yes, love that post. I've had two acoustics on stands in Oklahoma for a couple of years. The weather in Oklahoma ranges from -5 in the winter to 105 in the summer. I keep my heat set on 72 in the winter and 70 in the summer. I've noticed nothing of any importance with either guitar.

I keep thinking of the 70s when nobody knew anything about humidity in relation to guitars. People played their guitars and there aren't many horror stories about it.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I've mentioned several times I grew up in the high and very dry mountains of northern NM (7000' above sea level). In the winter the outside temperature and relative humidity are in the single digits.

And yet my dad, myself, and thousands of other people had wooden stringed instruments that miraculously survived with no attempt at humidity control. I still play my grandpa's 1880's wooden violin that survived that environment for over a century.

I played in the school orchestra all through grade school, junior high and high school. Hundreds of kids with wooden violins, violas, cellos, basses. Never ever heard of any damage to any of them.

Now i live in a low elevation desert in Washington state. I keep my music room humidified in the dry winter with evaporative Aircare units. I have 24 wooden stringed instruments, ranging from maybe 2 years to over a century old. They're all hanging out on the music room walls. No damage at all in the nearly 30 years I've been here.

Yes you have mentioned this before Interestingly enough at elevation while feeling dry the relative humidity is usually higher than it is in the lower desert area's , because of higher elevation and lower temperatures
Which is to say while the relative humidity can certainly get low at times. the average is often higher than even the people who live there realize.
In any case I offered my anecdotal experience of the frets protruding on a nice guitar from neglecting to properly address humidity YMMV

Here is an excerpt form an article about the climate in northern New Mexico
"Relative Humidity
Average relative humidities are lower in the valleys but higher in the mountains because of the lower mountain temperatures. Relative humidity ranges from an average of near 65 percent about sunrise to near 30 percent in midafternoon; however, afternoon humidities in warmer months are often less than 20 percent and occasionally may go as low as 4 percent. The low relative humidities during periods of extreme temperatures ease the effect of summer and winter temperature."

[Dr356]

Here in Tucson, we can have humidity in the low double digits at some times of the year. My guitars are kept in cases with sponge humidifiers and Humidipacks. They only come out of their cases if they are being played, and a regular chore is to recharge the sponges and Humidipacks. So far so good. At least in my situation, a whole room humidifier precipitates a lot of dust and is not practical.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by brilama

HSince the guitar is not kept in a case do you think the sponge humidifier actually helps?

Short answer: No.

It's just physics. Most of the water molecules from the sponge will very quickly disperse into the rest of the dry air of the room and not into the wood of your guitar where you want them. The only way to maintain the humidity around your guitar is to have it in a closed environment that will keep the moisture from dissipating, whether that is a closed guitar case with a humidipak or a closed room with a room humidifier. (And even then, the water will eventually find its way out to the drier surrounding environment, which is why you have to refill your humidifiers.)

And even if your instrument doesn't crack completely, you can still get annoying affects from dryness like fret sprout. I have an HD28 I didn't humidify for years in the dry Colorado climate. It never suffered structural damage, but the fret sprout got to where you had to be careful not to nick yourself while playing! I eventually got it humidified and the fret sprout reversed itself.

[catt]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I've mentioned several times I grew up in the high and very dry mountains of northern NM (7000' above sea level). In the winter the outside temperature and relative humidity are in the single digits.

And yet my dad, myself, and thousands of other people had wooden stringed instruments that miraculously survived with no attempt at humidity control. I still play my grandpa's 1880's wooden violin that survived that environment for over a century.

I played in the school orchestra all through grade school, junior high and high school. Hundreds of kids with wooden violins, violas, cellos, basses. Never ever heard of any damage to any of them.

Now i live in a low elevation desert in Washington state. I keep my music room humidified in the dry winter with evaporative Aircare units. I have 24 wooden stringed instruments, ranging from maybe 2 years to over a century old. They're all hanging out on the music room walls. No damage at all in the nearly 30 years I've been here.

Different instruments respond differently to environment. My violins and cellos and formerly basses never had a problem with dry climate (Colorado and Montana). However, I have several harps - for obvious reasons these do not live in cases - that are like the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. Wire-strung harp is notoriously the most sensitive and temperamental among instruments. Without a room humidifier, my large wire-strung harp would not hold tune for more than a couple of hours, and would occasionally pop a string or two overnight. But the problem is solved with a small cool air humidifier.

[Mandobart]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Here is an excerpt form an article about the climate in northern New Mexico
"Relative Humidity
Average relative humidities are lower in the valleys but higher in the mountains because of the lower mountain temperatures. Relative humidity ranges from an average of near 65 percent about sunrise to near 30 percent in midafternoon; however, afternoon humidities in warmer months are often less than 20 percent and occasionally may go as low as 4 percent. The low relative humidities during periods of extreme temperatures ease the effect of summer and winter temperature."

Not sure which meteorological expert provided this excerpt for you Kev, but as someone who actually lived there for many years I can tell you about the summer monsoons.

You wake up practically any morning in July and August to a perfect blue cloudless sky. By early afternoon the clouds come galloping over the Jémez mountains blackening the sky and sending down torrents of the hardest rain you've ever seen. Rain so hard it bounces when it hits the ground like hail (often it is hail). The Diné call it "male rain" (as opposed to the softer, gentler and less frequent female rain).

Anyway the RH is approximately 100% when that happens.

In the winter, it is dry. So dry people with a perm or curly/wavy hair go totally straight. So dry you can see (and feel) a big fat static spark every time you touch a metal doorknob.

I would expect Mount San Jacinto outside of Palm Springs could have similar weather - I only went up there once. But on my trips to Palm Springs (none at the height of summer) it didn't seem as dry as my NM home, based on no sore throat or dry eyes.

[brilama]

Thank you for all the suggestions. My current guitar is a low end instrument with laminate construction and it seems to be holding up. When I first moved here from the Midwest, it went out of whack. Since having it worked on, it is holding up. When/if I upgrade to a high quality guitar, I will put a plan together so it is in a controlled environment.

Take care,
Brian

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

Not sure which meteorological expert provided this excerpt for you Kev, but as someone who actually lived there for many years I can tell you about the summer monsoons.

New Mexico State University https://weather.nmsu.edu/climate/about/

As someone who has actually lived the mountains of Wyoming for 42 years, it has been my experience that the perceptions held by the locals is as much informed by the local legend and lore, as objective reality ...