Considering move to Boulder, CO - what to expect on humidity issues

Rosewood99 · #1 12-09-2019, 01:19 PM

A new job may take me to Boulder in the next year. Is lack of humidity a big issue? Are leaving guitars in their case pretty much required? How many months of the year is it a big issue?

Where I'm at in the South East Coast, there is only a few weeks a year where I need to use a room humidifier. I'm used to leaving my guitars out on stands all year round so this will be a big adjustment.

Joe Beamish · #2 12-09-2019, 01:22 PM

You're smart to watch out for the dry air. Humidify your guitars any way you like, but do indeed take steps to protect them. In NYC one winter I let a very lovely Guild jumbo dry out terribly, to where the edges of its frets were sticking out from the fretboard. Not good. I was eventually able to rehydrate the guitar with a luthier's help, but yeah. You don't want to go there.

Jecox · #3 12-09-2019, 01:36 PM

I live near Boulder. If you want to leave your guitars out, you should get a room humidifier or even a whole house humidifier. Winter is the worst, of course, but I humidify my guitars all year.

jay7347 · #4 12-09-2019, 01:40 PM

I'm north of Boulder in Loveland. I humidify all year around, with guitars in cases. My guitar teacher will humidify his studio where his guitars are out of case. It's a very dry climate.

-jay

Bob Womack · #5 12-09-2019, 01:42 PM

A friend moved from the Mid Atlantic, right on the coast, to Colorado Springs. Within a short time he had to reset all his truss rods and deal with some frets sprout from shrinking fret boards, despite humidifying.

Bob

Bluemonk · #6 12-09-2019, 02:57 PM

I lived in Boulder for 8 years in the 70s, all the time owning either a Martin or a custom handbuilt guitar. Yes, the air in Colorado is pretty dry. However, I never had any cracking or fret issues.

Rosewood99 · #7 12-09-2019, 02:59 PM

This may spur me into selling some of my guitars and getting that one or two dream guitar. I would have to open and close cases every time I want to play a different guitar. I could probably deal with two or possibly three.

ljguitar · #8 12-09-2019, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulzoom

A new job may take me to Boulder in the next year. Is lack of humidity a big issue? Are leaving guitars in their case pretty much required? How many months of the year is it a big issue?

Where I'm at in the South East Coast, there is only a few weeks a year where I need to use a room humidifier. I'm used to leaving my guitars out on stands all year round so this will be a big adjustment.

Hi pz

We live 55 miles North of Boulder - buy a hygrometer.

Whether or not they remain in cases depends on how you humidify (or don't) your home.

It's not painful, but diligence pays dividends.

Chipotle · #9 12-09-2019, 04:04 PM

Humidity here is pretty variable, although less of an issue during warmer weather. You can have weeks where the humidity is in the 40% plus range, but into 30% area would be more typical, and of course very dry stretches where it can almost reach single digits. Then during cold winter spells and you're heating 20F air, there's no way your indoor humidity will be high enough without help.

Long story short, yes you'll need case or room humidification much of the year. I have a small (10x11) study so I decided to humidify the room (Vornado Evap40 4-gal) rather than a half-dozen cases.

steelvibe · #10 12-09-2019, 04:23 PM

I've been a Colorado resident for over 40 years, so trust me when I say....It's dry here. In the Winter your skin gets itchy and smart men put on lotion. Good thing there is lotion nowadays for guys.

I'm 9 miles away from Boulder and the Winter months can have humidity levels down to 12%RH. Honestly I've seen guitars acclimate here though, and those guitars have owners who scoff at using humidifiers, and at casing guitars when not in use. I think the guitars in question have laminate b/s but the tops are solid. One is even a 12 string....never humidified and no cracks. I think that is crazy and I would never treat my guitar like that but I'm telling you what i see. Guitars are funny instruments.

I'm not one of those people. I have case humidifiers (up to 3 this time of year for my wood guitars.) With the 3 humidifers, the hygrometer says I'm barely around 44-45%. I don't use room humidifiers but my house is very "leaky".

And so I repeat.....it's dry here. Colorado is an arid climate otherwise known as high desert. So, it's like Arizona but at 5,000-14,000 ft depending on where you are in the state. Good news is that the Spring and Summer months are much more forgiving, but even then my guitars are humidified.

Birdbrain · #11 12-09-2019, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulzoom

This may spur me into selling some of my guitars and getting that one or two dream guitar. I would have to open and close cases every time I want to play a different guitar. I could probably deal with two or possibly three.

Living the hydrophobic life on the Front Range might be a justification for owning several fine guitars. If you rotate between four guitars, one a per week, each one will remain safely in its case for three weeks out of the month.

Constantly opening cases and refilling my Oasis humidifiers is tedious, but I have heard that acoustic guitars kept in humid environments tend to sound muffled. So at least you won't have to worry about that!

jaan · #12 12-09-2019, 06:13 PM

I live right next to Boulder, and it is very dry. I have a large walk in closet that I keep my guitars in, and I run a small humidifier in there. Works fine for me since it’s a small room. I have to refill it once a week or so, keeping the room in the mid 40s humidity wise. Sometimes I just go sit in there with them and bask in it myself ......

Rosewood99 · #13 12-09-2019, 06:59 PM

How long is it safe to keep a guitar out of its case in that dry climate? Can you leave it out all day or only an hour or two?

ljguitar · #14 12-09-2019, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulzoom

How long is it safe to keep a guitar out of its case in that dry climate? Can you leave it out all day or only an hour or two?

Hi pz

You are smart to ask questions going into the move
…so you don't end up like Bob's friend being shocked into action by everything on the guitar moving/shifting.

My wife and I travel between Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota (all above average humidity) with guitars, and then back to Wyoming in a couple of days with regularity (because our kids and grandkids live there). My guitar action doesn't shift, nor the physical condition of my instruments change in any way.

I have a hygrometer and humidifiers with me, and pull them out of cases when the indoor humidity is above 40%.

Can I even keep the guitar out of the case to practice?
Humidity changes (for the guitar) are reflected in weeks and months, not hours and minutes. And dry (in the winter particularly) in this region out of doors it can drop to single digits, but there are many days even in winter where out door humidity is well above 45%.

That's where using a hygrometer comes into play. Monitor a couple spots in your house where your guitars are kept, and you'll be ahead of the game. You can decide your course of action based on monitoring. I use the cheap electronic ones from Walmart ($15ish)

Unlike jay7347 (who is a good friend of mine), my main guitars live on the walls in the living room much of the time, and only in the driest of times do they go into cases. I've lived here 43 years without cracks.

Guitars have been part of the culture out West for 150 years at least, and there are plenty of guitars which survived. And starting by the 1960s, players began using humidifiers in their cases with regularity.

Dampit has been making humidifiers with a humidity gauge painted onto the card with a chemical that changes color (and the gauge printed on the card) for more than 40 years now. They are the same ones Bob Taylor filled about 10 of them and stuffed them into the sound hole of a dried out Taylor once to bring it back from it's suffering (there used to be a video of it on YouTube).

All this to say, it IS drier here than other places in the US, and it's EASY to keep it from being an issue. No need for paranoia…

jaan · #15 12-09-2019, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulzoom

How long is it safe to keep a guitar out of its case in that dry climate? Can you leave it out all day or only an hour or two?

Personally I leave one a week at a time out of the humidity controlled closet, then rotate another out (This is the max, but I usually do it faster just because I tend to play all my guitars)