Humidification / dehumidification for instruments

[Shawn Pixley]

I am in the process of building a guitar display / storage cabinet for my guitars. My brother repairs, restores, and tunes pianos. He is also building banjos. He uses a piano humidification / dehumidification system called "Dampp-chaser". He lives in the dessert where humidification is paramount.

I am considering this for my cabinet. I live at the beach without much temperature or humidity change except when the santa anas' blow. What are your thoughts?

[Barry Daniels]

The best environment is a stable humidity and temperature. I keep my shop at 45% relative humidity. Most of the time I have to use a de-humidifier to achieve this. I never have to add humidity because the Houston area never gets very low. So what you need for your cabinet depends on your local conditions. What is the humidity range at your place? Probably a good first step is to get a good humidity gauge and keep track of it through a full year. By the way, the relative humidity outside that the weathermen report may be quite different than your house.

[Shawn Pixley]

The best environment is a stable humidity and temperature. What is the humidity range at your place? Probably a good first step is to get a good humidity gauge and keep track of it through a full year. By the way, the relative humidity outside that the weathermen report may be quite different than your house.

I actually know the RH. It ranges in the extreme from 100% to 16%. But between the 90-10 percentiles 92% high and 42% low. Most of the time it averages 70% at temps beween 50 degrees and 80 degrees F. The house is heated during 2-1/2 monthes of the winter. After that we naturally ventilate - no AC. The case is to keep salt breeze off the instruments. In general, I worry more about too humid rather than too dry.

[Barry Daniels]

I just looked at the Dampp Chaser and the dehumidifier part of it seems to work by heating up the air. In my opinion, this is not an effective method of dehumidification. Hot air just has less ability to hold humidity. I use a dehumidifier unit that I bought at Home Depot for about $200. They work well but they may wear out in a year or two so I got the extended warrenty because the last one only lasted three years. But if you have your home open to the outside air so a dehumidifier for the room would not work. In that situation the Dampp Chaser might be a good solution, except you don't need the humidifer portion.