cobbler
Fractal Fanatic
I recently have been asked by a few people how I keep my guitar room humidified since the average humidity here in the desert is around 15% which we all know will ruin your guitars. So here are a few paragraphs on my humidification journey. Hopefully someone will benefit from my trial and error process with regards to keeping your guitars happy.
My guitar room is a converted walk in 8’x12’ closet. I originally bought a cheapo steam based humidifier from Target that worked for about 4 days and had no control of the humidity level. After tossing that I picked up a Boneco (formally Air-O-Swiss) ultrasonic humidifier. These work by having a little disk unit that vibrates so rapidly that it creates a mist from the water. The down side is they often create a white mist of minerals that looks like dust and it gets all over the house. I corrected this somewhat by using the water out of my Reverse Osmosis System.
However, it was a pain in the ass to fill the 3.5 gallon tank every 2 to 3 days and lug it into the guitar room. Also, you had to purchase a filter that needs replacement every 3-4 months as well as a little water purifier lozenge that needs to be replaced every 3-4 weeks. Not a cost efficient way (around $15 a month) to go considering the humidifier itself was over $200.00. Also, the hygrometer in the unit was off by 33%. Yikes! The lowest setting was 40% humidity and I had a hard time keeping the level below 60%. I had to position the thing an exact way in the room where the sensor could be kind of fooled but it was a crap shoot all the time trying to keep the humidity level between 45% and 55%. I read a lot of reviews complaining about the inaccurate hygrometer.
Well, the tank started leaking after 4 months and of course it’s the only part not covered in the 1-year warranty. Arrrrghhhhhh! So I was off to find a better solution and I found it!
I came across a site where several musicians with high digit violins etc. (we are talking 100K plus instruments here) are using an old German technology air washer. So I looked them up. Venta Airwashers. The technology is quite simple. It has a paddle type wheel that brings moisture up to a fan that spreads it to the room. They have several sizes depending on your room size. Their target is to humidify a room 40%-55%. Of course that is entirely dependent on the rooms size, shape, and size of the Airwasher product you choose. I bought the medium unit which was rated for rooms 4 times larger than mine as I wanted to be able to run it on the slow speed to reduce fan noise. No, this is not another fan story.
It works great! You simply add a large cup of water (32 oz) to the reservoir nightly (or a gallon every 3-4 days) and every 3 to 4 weeks wipe clean the reservoir and add a few drops of water treatment that helps stick the water to the paddlewheel. The treatment runs about $30 for a years supply. Unfortunately, I was still having a problem with keeping the humidity level consistent since there is no hygrometer on the unit. One of the violinists on the aforementioned site suggested using what he found. A Green Air Products THC-2. It’s a perfect combination with the Venta. You plug the Airwasher into the THC-2 which has an accurate hygrometer and it simply turns the power on/off on the attached equipment according to the specified humidity chosen. It also has a dehumidify option if needed.
So the Airwasher gets shut off if the humidity hits 55% and turns back on when it hits 45%. i.e +/- 5% of the setting. It’s been several months now and I have not had to do a thing other than add the glass of water nightly. So when I feed the dog I feed the guitars too!
My guitar room is a converted walk in 8’x12’ closet. I originally bought a cheapo steam based humidifier from Target that worked for about 4 days and had no control of the humidity level. After tossing that I picked up a Boneco (formally Air-O-Swiss) ultrasonic humidifier. These work by having a little disk unit that vibrates so rapidly that it creates a mist from the water. The down side is they often create a white mist of minerals that looks like dust and it gets all over the house. I corrected this somewhat by using the water out of my Reverse Osmosis System.
However, it was a pain in the ass to fill the 3.5 gallon tank every 2 to 3 days and lug it into the guitar room. Also, you had to purchase a filter that needs replacement every 3-4 months as well as a little water purifier lozenge that needs to be replaced every 3-4 weeks. Not a cost efficient way (around $15 a month) to go considering the humidifier itself was over $200.00. Also, the hygrometer in the unit was off by 33%. Yikes! The lowest setting was 40% humidity and I had a hard time keeping the level below 60%. I had to position the thing an exact way in the room where the sensor could be kind of fooled but it was a crap shoot all the time trying to keep the humidity level between 45% and 55%. I read a lot of reviews complaining about the inaccurate hygrometer.
Well, the tank started leaking after 4 months and of course it’s the only part not covered in the 1-year warranty. Arrrrghhhhhh! So I was off to find a better solution and I found it!
I came across a site where several musicians with high digit violins etc. (we are talking 100K plus instruments here) are using an old German technology air washer. So I looked them up. Venta Airwashers. The technology is quite simple. It has a paddle type wheel that brings moisture up to a fan that spreads it to the room. They have several sizes depending on your room size. Their target is to humidify a room 40%-55%. Of course that is entirely dependent on the rooms size, shape, and size of the Airwasher product you choose. I bought the medium unit which was rated for rooms 4 times larger than mine as I wanted to be able to run it on the slow speed to reduce fan noise. No, this is not another fan story.
It works great! You simply add a large cup of water (32 oz) to the reservoir nightly (or a gallon every 3-4 days) and every 3 to 4 weeks wipe clean the reservoir and add a few drops of water treatment that helps stick the water to the paddlewheel. The treatment runs about $30 for a years supply. Unfortunately, I was still having a problem with keeping the humidity level consistent since there is no hygrometer on the unit. One of the violinists on the aforementioned site suggested using what he found. A Green Air Products THC-2. It’s a perfect combination with the Venta. You plug the Airwasher into the THC-2 which has an accurate hygrometer and it simply turns the power on/off on the attached equipment according to the specified humidity chosen. It also has a dehumidify option if needed.
So the Airwasher gets shut off if the humidity hits 55% and turns back on when it hits 45%. i.e +/- 5% of the setting. It’s been several months now and I have not had to do a thing other than add the glass of water nightly. So when I feed the dog I feed the guitars too!
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