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It’s been near or below zero here for a couple days. Last night while watching TV I hear two cracks and then the ringing of the G string on one of my guitars. Sure enough, a crack on the back.

I build in the basement which keeps humidity low in the summer and it stays stable even in the winter. The house is relatively new 2006 and well insulated. We do have a dog door that leaks like a sieve.

The house is 1600sq ft upstairs and a full finished basement. So I’m looking at ~3200 sq ft of area to heat / AC.

Looks like Aprilaire is the choice that is most talked about. I’ll reach out to an installer today.

Question - Should I expect that the humidifier will be able to also stabilize the basement area? There are two ducts down there total and neither are in my shop. One is in the main “living” area and the other is in the bathroom. Should I expect to need to add a duct directly in the shop in order to take advantage of the whole home humidifier?

I’ll ask these questions to the installer as well, but in the context of guitar building, is there anything special I need to consider?

Thanks!
Brad




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Brad--

I feel your pain! I've had it happen, too. Mine were top cracks.

On the whole house humidifier: How separate from the rest of the basement is your shop? If it is pretty separate, then I think you will need a vent installed. If, on the other hand, the air moves well throughout the whole basement, you will probably be OK just having the whole house humidifier use the existing ductwork.

On brands: I use an Aprilaire dehumidifier, and it is awesome, so I would expect the humidifier to be a good unit, too. My particular whole house humidifier is a Skuttle, and it works fine. You might want to make sure to use a brand that can be serviced by someone you trust. These things will need service every so often.

One thing to note: A lot of installers are going to think that you want the RH too high if you are shooting for 40% or higher in the winter. They probably will consider 30% or higher as acceptable for human comfort. You might want to talk to the installer about your special need in the shop.

A longer term thought: If your shop is relatively separate from the rest of the house (and therefore harder to heat, cool, humidify and dehumidify with the rest of the house), you might want to just go ahead and section it off, and install a separate HVAC and RH control system for the shop. It helps keep dust out of the living space, and it is easier to control all of those environmental considerations in a smaller space. I currently live in a large house, and my shop cannot be sectioned off, but if/when my wife and I sell this big house and get a smaller one, I am going to make sure I have a shop space with separate air handling.

I just set up a new shop in a detached 2.5 car garage that is insulated and drywalled. I had a new forced air gas furnace installed. My whole-house cabinet style humidifier struggles to keep the shop at 45% when we are in a deep freeze, which we are currently in. By this I mean that it works but never turns off. I spoke to my HVAC installer about adding an Aprilaire humidifier to the system and he told me that it won't raise humidity much more than 30%. Your best bet may be to seal off your work area as much as possible and use a dedicated whole house stand-alone humidifier. I've used such a setup in three shops and have never had a humidity-related issue with my guitars.

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It will probably be alright.

One thing I've found in my shop is that it is much easier to maintain humidity in the winter if I keep the temperature at around 55 F. I will turn up the heat for short times if needed, like when I'm working with HHG. Of course, not everyone will want to work in a shop at 55-60F

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Ouch. I feel your pain. Fwiw I partitioned off a section off my shop, insulated, covered the studs with thick Visqueen plastic (why is it called Visqueen?) drywalled, even installed an insulated exterior door. It works well enough that I use a tiny cube style ceramic heater and a small Boneco brand Swiss Air humidifier which easily keeps the area at 40% humidity. Or whatever I want for that matter.
I’ve read it on this excellent forum in the past to build on the dryer side. Less damage to the guitar if it swells. If you build in upper humidity- ouch. I sold one to someone who eventually sold to a friend who lived in a very dry area of Colorado. It didn’t crack. But the sound board was almost reverse curved. The strings were smacking the frets. So I dedicate the room I made to guitar woods storage and building and the rest of the shop to machining. So far it has worked well.
(I have to add that you could see the outline of the X braces on the top it was so dry. )

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The little room humidifier in my music room goes thru 2 gallons of water a day and it barely maintains 30%. My music store says their HVAC humidifier goes thru 20 gallons a day. Every one of my guitars lives in its case with a sponge/baggie humidifier.

Learned humility a few years ago when I built a parlor for my daughter. I was so proud of it that of course it had to stay out on a stand so I could admire. Wood makes a horrible sound when it goes crack

I read that at one time, Jeffrey Elliot and his partner had a great way to help the humidity in their shop during the winter months.
They would hang wet towels. Low tech but very efficient.

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Rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Hey Brad: I bought a condo about 1.5 year ago and specifically looked for and found a place that sheltered from the wind and that had a minimal northern exposure. What resulted is I only need to humidify Dec though March.

Having had some experience with furnace humidifiers I knew that the manufactures are into alternative facts and will tell you that one may do say 5,000 feet but the reality is that it may only do half of that at the levels that we require, 40 - 50%.

As such my HVAC people who have a great reputation were asked to consult with me and they recommend an April Air product made by a company owned by April Air. My next request was for the next bigger model over their recommendation and that's what I got.

This one uses hot water from the hot water tank with the overflow going into the sump and when need be pumped out the back of the condo. I can maintain 50% easily even now and it's below zero here..... and currently have it set to maintain 45% up stairs where most of the acoustic instruments are and it maintains 43% downstairs. I have only three vents downstairs and they were an after thought in so much as my basement was finished after the condo was built and that's when the vents were added downstairs. I barely get any airflow from the furnace (or AC) on the lower level which is probably why the RH is very slightly less down there but certainly acceptable.

The thing works great and my readings are very stable with no swings what so ever. The upstairs is basically nailed at 45% and never seems to change. It's sensor is attached to the cold air intake and that's what it reads for turning itself on and off. The sensor or humidistat is of course adjustable.

The "panels" which are the wicks lasted me an entire season last year for only one of them required. Again I do nothing, it's completely automatic, out of site and out of mind and the best humidity experience I'ver ever had in a dwelling.

My recommendation to you is to go with a larger size than they may recommend and I would suspect that even though you too have limited air flow in your lower level that the nature of lower levels may retain humidity better anyway.

Lastly it's key here to actually have something that you can call a reference standard for use as a hygrometer. The ones on the market are rarely accurate and people just trust them when we routinely check them for our clients and find them 15% off not uncommonly..... Most hygrometers especially the digitals are freakin junk.....

I use a Abbeon Cal that I got from Elderly and then calibrate every year with both a wet bulb test and a psychrometer check. My hygrometer will drift a degree or two annually and I calibrate that out of it. Once I have a reference standard I set a cheap and $7 Best Air one next to the Abbeon and write on the face of the cheap one what things really are and then use the cheap one on one level and that Abbeon on the other level.

My unit on my furnace was professionally installed and there is a small run of additional ductwork bridging the out put ducts with the input ducts. I've not noticed any degradation in my heating performance (or cost) of the AC either. The unit installed cost me to $800ish.

In summary I'm thrilled. Money well spent and a solution that works beyond expectations and after the sunk costs only has about $12 of annual costs for the "panel" and what ever for the hot water. I'm also for the first time in my life not schlepping water from sunrise to sundown.... Much appreciated!