Dry Humidity Hurting my Guitars

Does Low Humidity Cause Permanent Guitar Damage?

I believe short term low humidity won’t kill my guitars. But leaving them unattended for a winter of low humidity might damage them enough to require a luthier’s repairs. I’m not an expert in this area. So do your research on possible guitar damage due to low relative humidity.

Guitar Symptoms of Low Humidity

Are you getting acoustic fret buzz but don’t know why? Trouble with spikey frets on a guitar? What’s causing those problems?

Low humidity is the problem.

This is my first Chicago winter with guitars, both acoustic and electric. I have been immersed in playing guitars and reading about guitars for almost 4 months.

I purchased two thermometers for my basement to make sure it was warm enough for me and for the guitars. That part was OK. What I failed to track initially were the humidity readings from my basement office. Currently its 69/35 (temperature/humidity) near the gas heater and 65/38 near the colder west wall.

Two Symptoms that Dry Humidity is Affecting Your Guitars

For me, here were the symptoms of dry humidity abuse on my guitars.

1. The Epiphone DR-100 is developing fret buzz on the low E string. Never had it before.
2. My Jet JS300 which had a smooth roasted maple neck now has a bit of spikiness on the frets.

Let’s just say that wood shrinks when the humidity drops below 40% . And that’s not good for guitars.

Read Sweetwater’s article on The Ideal Humidity for Your Guitar. 40% to 50% seems to be the zone you want for your guitars.

Increase Humidity for Your Guitars

If I was rich and had a new house I could probably control the humidity for my guitar/camera/LincolnLibrary/fishing room. I live in a 115 year old frame bungalow in Chicago so I need to be Kaizen and just seek emergency improvements to protect my guitars.

1. Increase the Heating system humidity to 45%. My wife had turned down this humidity control on our new heater to perhaps 30%. I turned it up to about 50%. That won’t magically increase humidity in my basement office but it will raise humidity perhaps 3 points.
2. Quickly ordered a humidifier via Amazon. However, I didn’t check the delivery. It may take 2 weeks.
3. Visit Home Depot for a humidifier. I may go to the local Home Depot tomorrow and try to find an emergency humidifier.
4. Boxed my Jet guitars. They were getting spikey frets. Maybe I just encapsulated my Jet guitars in a box with low humidity. Hope not. I’ll take them out when I have humidity controlled in Richard’s Guitar Heaven (that’s what a friend called my basement office). Or I’ll leave them boxed all winter until humidity rises a bit.
5. Cased or gig bagged my several acoustic guitars. Again, maybe I’m just entombing those guitars in a dry torture chamber. Hope not. My hope is that these acoustic guitars will not be subjected to the 10 point relative humidity swings I am seeing in my basement.
6. Purchase a D’Addario Humidipak for one acoustic guitar in its case. The Fender CD60 has a case so it might get the Humidipak.
7. Purchase a beat up guitar case at a local re-sale shop. I am looking for one tomorrow. It was there 3 weeks ago.
8. Purchase a D’Addario Accessories Guitar Humidifier for $7 at Amazon.
9. Keep all electrics and acoustics in boxes, cases, or gig bags until this low humidity problem is resolved.

Buying an Expensive Humidity Cabinet for a Guitar

I can’t afford it.

But you can see one cabinet at The ShowCase™ Deluxe Guitar Display Case that is selling for around $1000. If you have a guitar worth thousands of dollars, it makes perfect sense to buy such a humidity cabinet.

Kaizen, Verbesserung and Protecting your Guitars against Low Humidity

Kaizen is Japanese and means “to improve”. Germans call it die Verbesserung (improvement). That’s a nice word also. Anyway, since I can’t buy thousands of dollars of guitar humidity controlled cabinets, I’m doing the next best thing: being Kaizen in increasing my office humidity.

Thanks for visiting KaizenGuitarist.com today.