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Mist humidifier okay?
as the cold has started to settle here in the Northeast US my heater has started to kick in the RH is dropping in my music/guitar room (this morning it read 25% in the room). although i use cases and soundhole humidifiers, i am wondering if it helps at all to use a cool mist humidifier to keep the ambient air not TOO dry. are there any downsides to this for those with experience?
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#2
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One thing I don't like is that these small humidifers run out of water very quickly so my whole day seems to be refilling these things.
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Martin X1-DE Epiphone AJ500MNS Alvarez AD30 Alvarez AD710 Alvarez RD20S Esteban American Legacy Rogue mandolin |
#3
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We use one in our attached greenhouse. When it's on, it's like a rainforest in there. But there is nothing to hurt in a greenhouse and of course some of the humidity spills over. I'd say it adds 5-10% to the entire home, which needs it as we use wood heat.
If I had that sucker in my music room, there'd be mold everywhere. But smaller units are available that are less effective but less apt to do damage. We had one for a while and found, for the whole house, it made little difference. But no mold. That was in pre-greenhouse days. We got very tired of filling the little one once or twice a day and then the minerals in our water rendered it useless, so we tossed it. That's my experience. I am sure others will reply and tell of theirs and they'll probably be quite different. Just remember about the minerals if you have them. We also paid big bucks for a whole house humidifier and it only lasted a few months before the minerals got it. BTW, we do not have huge amounts of minerals here. On. the greenhouse unit, we try to use ran or snow melt as much as possible. And it's cleanable.
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#4
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We tried them for 2 seasons the end result being white dust all over anything near them, inside of TVs, inside of DVD players (actually ruined one), white dust on solid wood furniture in the room. Even changing filters on the time schedule they recommended (which is expensive) we still ended up with the white dust on everything. And there are other methods of humidifying which give better results. |
#5
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If you’re in a position to do it, adding a whole house humidifier to a furnace isn’t that expensive. I’ve got one and I run it and leave guitars out as I always do, don’t have to monkey with filling water in standalone units or addressing in case humidifiers (I just change the filter once a year). Beyond that, it just makes being in the house more pleasant. An added bonus is that you don’t have to heat quite as much with higher RH because the humidity actually makes it feel warmer (I run my heat about two degrees lower than I likely would otherwise). So, my quality of life is better, my guitars remain accessible, and I save a bunch of time - I’ve not identified any negatives.
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#6
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You want evaporative humidifiers for guitars. You also need to keep your house above 65 degrees or the humidity level will be zilch.
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"Vintage taste, reissue budget" |
#7
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Search the forum and you'll see many threads about this. Unless you use distilled water, a mist humidifier is going to leave a fine white powder all over the room you use it in. Also, unless you're using it in a fairly small, confined area, it's likely to not appreciably increase the RH in the room.
I bought a "whole house" evaporative portable humidifier (Essick) off Amazon for like $100. It's not exactly small, or quiet, but it does the job. When I run the AC (which is most of the time in Central FL), the RH in my music room hovers around 30%. With the evaporative humidifier, I can bring it up closer to 45%. It holds 5 gallons of water (ad says 6 gallons, but it's really only 5), which lasts for about 2 days if I want it around 45%, or 3 days if I set it to be closer to 40%. Right now, with the cooler weather, I haven't filled it in almost 2 weeks because it's naturally staying between 40 and 45%. I probably won't need to fill it again until I need to turn on the heat, which is usually in December or January. BTW, I have 10 guitars, three of which hang in wood/glass cases on the wall. In-case humidifying systems would be a PITA to keep tabs on. It takes 5 minutes every time I fill it, which isn't too bad. And I don't need to use distilled water because the filter traps all the particles that a mist humidifier will deposit all over the room. I will need to buy a new filter for it soon though. After three months of using it, the filter is starting to smell. |
#8
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I never had issues with white deposits as others have reported, despite using very hard tap water in our mister. That said, we chose one that comes with a built-in filter, so perhaps that's the key. Using distilled water in a humidifier is cost-prohibitive in my experience. You'd spend hundreds of dollars a year, and it'd be much cheaper in the long run to install a whole-house humidification system. On the downside, I never noticed a significant impact on humidity. I still don't understand why that is, but in my experience, evaporative humidifiers work great in increasing relative humidity in a room, while misters look much more impressive as they spew visible droplets into the air, but the hygrometers don't register any added moisture for some reason.
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"I've always thought of bluegrass players as the Marines of the music world" – (A rock guitar guy I once jammed with) Martin America 1 Martin 000-15sm Recording King Dirty 30s RPS-9 TS Taylor GS Mini Baton Rouge 12-string guitar Martin L1XR Little Martin 1933 Epiphone Olympic 1971 square neck Dobro |
#9
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We use the cheap Vick’s warm mist units. Water here is very hard but still just use tap water. Every couple of weeks I scrape the lime scale off the heating element with a knife.
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#10
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The confusion arises when air at a certain temp and RH is heated. The air has a set amount of water in it but can hold more if it is warmer, so air with *absolute* amount of water X at 40F might be 50% RH (50% of what it can hold), but when heated to 80F, that same amount of water would only be have 4% of the water it could potentially hold, because now that it's warmer it can hold more--thus 4% RH. You will have to pump water into the air with a humidifier, putting more absolute amount of water in that 80F air, to get it up to 50% of what it can now hold, or 50% RH. |
#11
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This ===>
I bought a "whole house" evaporative portable humidifier (Essick) off Amazon for like $100. It's not exactly small, or quiet, but it does the job. When I run the AC (which is most of the time in Central FL), the RH in my music room hovers around 30%. With the evaporative humidifier, I can bring it up closer to 45%. It holds 5 gallons of water (ad says 6 gallons, but it's really only 5), which lasts for about 2 days... I used to use a mist humidifier and had white dust everywhere. Ugh! Now I have one of the Essick Aircare pedestal units in my basement guitar studio (a few 100 square feet) and it works perfectly. No dust! During the winter months, I dump a couple of pitchers of water in it every couple of days, along with half a cap of bacteriostatic solution. RH in the studio stays right around 50%. Outside of the studio, ambient RH gets as low as 18-20% in the Ohio winters. The unit runs probably 75% of the time, and is not terribly noisy with the fan set at 2 or 3. I use tap water and simply replace the crusty filter in the springtime when I no longer need to run the unit continuously. Ciao, Rick |
#12
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thanks for all the informative responses - sounds like there are several ways to do this. we have baseboard heat so i can't use a central whole-house unit. i think i will try to cheap mist method first and if i get white-powder syndrome then move to the next step.....or maybe just save up for a carbon fiber =) haha!
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#13
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Use *Distilled water*, you'll be fine with no white dust.
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Herman |
#14
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Here's another free thing to do, a few actually.
Run your shower at full hot water and let the steam enter your home/apartment/tent/igloo or whatever Hang up some damp sheets or clothing and let it air dry. The moisture will evaporate into the general air Heat up a cauldron of water to boiling and bring it into your place. Watch out for spilling etc. After the immediate rise in humidity you can just keep the pan or bucket out for natural evaporation. As an aside, I recently did the opposite to remove moisture during days of high humidity. I put out common charcoal briquettes and let them absorb the moisture.
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Martin X1-DE Epiphone AJ500MNS Alvarez AD30 Alvarez AD710 Alvarez RD20S Esteban American Legacy Rogue mandolin |
#15
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My experience as well.
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