Winter is coming. When we talk about the structural integrity of your favorite guitar, this could spell trouble. Smaller issues with intonation or action on a guitar may be telltale signs that it’s not prepared for a cold, dry season. The changing seasons naturally bring changes in humidity, and along with the way a guitar is kept and stored, these changes could dry a guitar out. The effects of a dry guitar can often be reversed, but sometimes if the condition persists too long, severe damage can occur. Erring on the side of caution today can do wonders for your guitar and prevent major damage and repairs down the road. With a couple of quick pointers, you can get up-to-date and informed on the best practices to keep your guitars safe this season.
TL; DRMaintaining proper humidity plays a big role in the maintenance, upkeep, and care of your acoustic or electric guitar. Low humidity and drastic changes in humidity can cause tangible problems in your guitar's structural integrity, playability, and presentation. The most common problems caused by humidification can be inexpensively prevented or remedied through products like the D'Addario Humidipak Humidity Systems.
Relative Humidity and Safe Storage
What humidity should a guitar be kept at?
Let's start with some vocabulary. Relative humidity refers to the amount of moisture air can hold at a given temperature. Since temperature has a direct effect on the humidity of the air, it will influence the humidity of your guitar. Guitars are most comfortable at around 50% relative humidity. Some might say anywhere between 48% to 52% is a good bet, but to keep it simple, 45% to 50% is ideal. In the Atlantic northeast for instance (like where we here at Russo Music ship out of every day), the humidity in your home will very likely not be close to 50% in the middle of the winter, so it's best to plan accordingly.
The Dangers of Low Humidity
What problems can humidity cause in a guitar?
Low Humidity in Acoustic Guitars
There are some smaller considerations about guitar design that can go mostly unmentioned in guitar care and upkeep. For one, an acoustic guitar is not finished on the inside of its body the way it is on its outside. This means that moisture inside can move in and out of its inner woods with no resistance. The top of your acoustic guitar, for example, can hold about one to one-and-a-half ounces of water at proper humidity. Water has weight and takes up space, so when your Sitka spruce top loses its water, the wood shrinks and "drops" your top. This shrinking can quickly lower your string action and cause fret buzz. With these pieces of your guitar out of place, you're sure to notice fast when your instrument doesn't play the way you like it.
The same can happen with internal braces or glue joints where the guitar's sides meet its top or back. If the glue joints don't come loose, then something else is sure to give. This is where drops in guitar humidity can even crack your tonewoods for way more serious (and costly) structural problems.
Low Humidity in Electric Guitars
While this whole discussion mostly concerns acoustic guitars for being more heavily affected by changes in humidity by their design and construction, we can also talk about risks with mismatched humidity in electric guitars. With electric guitars, you'll most likely see changes in humidity affect two noticeable elements: Its finish and its playability.
Most electric guitars are treated to a gloss lacquer finish of some sort. Lacquer finishes can also be affected by changes in humidity. Changes in humidity can result in finish cracks and checks in brand new guitars, usually seen as thin, striped, underlying cracks in a finish – the kind you might see in an intentionally Relic-finished guitar from the Fender Custom Shop or Gibson Custom Shop.
The other place you’ll notice some changes in your electric is from a loss of moisture in its neck. Like we mentioned, water takes up space and wood shrinks when it’s gone, but your frets are made of metal and will stay the same size. Therefore, you get a shrunken neck and frets now too long for the dehumidified size, so you feel the metal of the fret ends sticking out while you’re trying to play. Not fun.
Shipping Guitars and Changes in Humidity
When it comes to getting a guitar these days, you've got a pretty big online market to shop from. This is great for getting a Martin in the mail a week later but could spell disaster if you're not careful. While here at Russo Music, we take special interest in keeping guitars properly humidified during display, storage, and service, we can't assure the same with shipping carriers. Your average truck will not be so merciful with your guitar's humidity for seven days in transit, let's just say.
While we can't change every carrier's policies to accommodate humidity, we can encourage that, when receiving a guitar in the mail – during the winter or with a change in climate or otherwise – you leave it in its case and box to acclimate to your home for at least twenty-four hours. In any situation, it's better to be safe than sorry.
The Case for Guitar Case Humidification
Does a guitar case protect against problems with humidity?
On one of our trips to the Taylor Guitars factory in El Cajon, California, we learned some interesting information about guitar humidity that changed the way we discuss guitar humidification. Taylor painstakingly maintains a 50% humidity level with ultrasonic mist machines in their workspaces, much like we do in our showrooms, warehouses, and workshops. However, they mentioned having a problem where repaired customer guitars were developing issues upon return.
Properly humidified and carefully repaired guitars would return to their loving homes only to develop humidity issues soon after. The culprit, as it turned out, was a room at the Taylor factory where the service department stored customer guitar cases not being properly humidified. Guitars serviced were kept in separate humidity conditions from their cases – the guitars in a high-humidity environment and their cases in a lower-humidity environment. The danger was in the details as the cases would effectively sap the moisture from the properly humidified guitars.
The average guitar holds 200 grams of moisture at proper humidity while the average case holds 500 grams of moisture. If you put your humidified guitar in its non-humidified case that is more than twice its mass, the case will sap the moisture out of your guitar, putting it back to square one. The solution? Humidify both the guitar and its case.
Preventing Humidity Damage
How do I protect my guitar from problems with humidity?
Preventing humidity damage comes down to three important aspects: Knowledge, awareness, and commitment. First, keep the hows and whys of guitar humidity in mind. Be ready to recognize the effects of humidity on your guitars. Second, take action to monitor the humidity of your home with something like the Taylor Hygrometer. The numbers on your residential humidifier or dehumidifier are not accurate for what we're trying to track, though they can provide good estimations to calibrate against. In addition, a whole house humidifier can be helpful but will not provide protection for a guitar inside its case. Lastly, make sure to stay on track to keep your guitars safe and playing their best throughout the seasons. Commit to best practices in humidification to protect your instrument and guarantee its long and happy life.
Our Winter-time Recommendations
How to protect a guitar from problems with humidity
While keeping proper humidity in a room or house might seem like a good solution, it is in fact quite a challenging feat. Now we know what you're thinking, "What, you want me to humidify my whole house just for my guitar?" And no, luckily, we don't. We can recommend instead keeping your guitar humidified in its case as a much easier and more manageable solution. For that, we suggest a couple of products to help get the job done.
D’Addario Humidipak Maintain and Restore Humidity System
The D'Addario Humidipak Humidity Control System is a foolproof way to maintain your guitar and case at around 48% humidity, which is perfect. The system is bidirectional and will automatically push and pull moisture as needed to regulate until its replaceable packs wear out. This works really well in all seasons to maintain your instrument and case. The system consists of three pouches with replaceable gel packs that live inside your case with the guitar. In our experience, packs can last anywhere from two to six months or longer, depending on your climatic conditions.
D’Addario does advise replacing packets when they feel stiff. According to D’Addario, the longest use for a single packet should be, at very most, twelve months. Packets bursting from not being replaced or cared for can also cause some pretty big problems.
There are two parts of the D'Addario Humidipak Humidity System. The first is the D'Addario Humidipak Humidity Maintain System. This is the type of pack you keep in your case year-round to maintain consistent and proper humidity. The second is the D'Addario Humidipak Humidity Restore System. This is the type of pack that you use to restore your dried-out guitar to proper humidity with a higher output of moisture. D'Addario's Restore System is used to rectify more serious humidity-related problems before transitioning to the Maintain System that upkeeps normal humidity once such problems are remedied.
Shop the D'Addario Humidipak Maintain System
Shop the D'Addario Humidipak Restore System
Oasis Case Humidifier
This product from Oasis consists of a permeable fabric bottle with a chemical powder inside that, when filled up, holds thirty-two grams of water to let out into your cased guitar gradually. When the bottle shrivels up, it's time to add more water. The next dry season, just replace the chemicals with a replacement pack and you're good to go. The system also serves as an excellent "reservoir" for your D'Addario Humidipak System as it can extend life of the D’Addarios packs, meaning fewer pack replacements are needed as packs don't dry up as quickly.
