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Thread: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in place.

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    Registered User Owl Hoo Hoo's Avatar
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    Default Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in place.

    I searched the archives and alas, could not find a direct answer to this question.

    I have all my instruments in a small roughly 10x10 room in which I have a Levoit Ultrasonic Humidifier which holds 6 litres/1.5 gallons of water. I have the relative humidity set to 45% and it has seemed to work fine (i.e. staying at 45% and adding humidity when this drops). Then I questioned, what if I placed ANOTHER hygrometer on the side of the room where some of my instruments are. YIKES. The reading was 27% and 31% at even another location when I tried that.

    So what should I trust, the Levoit Ultrasonic Humidifier reading or the reading around the instruments. Because if I need to make sure the instruments get 45% relative humidity then I would need to crank the Levoit Ultrasnic Humidifier to lets say 65% to get to maybe 45% where my instruments are.

    I hope this makes sense.

    WHAT DO I TRUST, I've invested a lot over the years and want to protect my instruments.

    Thanks in advance.
    Steven

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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    If you look at them at the same time they may read different, but humidity is capillary so it will even out. My humidifier is in the bathroom, but I monitor the humidity in the kitchen. I am sure it is higher in the bathroom, but only for a while as it moves slowly around the house.
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    Registered User Rich Benson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    That's always been my issue. In Denver in winter I'm never able to get above 30% in different parts of the one room I have my instruments in. I've had at least a dozen different humidifiers, some real pricey, and nothing has been effective. I keep everything in a case with in-case humidifiers in each. Also, I never enjoyed the cleaning and disinfecting of the different humidifying machines.
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  4. #4

    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    If you really want to even it out you may need to run a fan to circulate air around the room. I wouldn’t worry too much about it though.

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    Registered User Sue Rieter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    At my house, in the living room where I like to practice, the humidifier is on one end of the room and the woodstove on the other. A fan by the humidifier helped *a lot*.
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    My wood stove is between my humidifier and my gauge. I still have 50%. Maybe i should check the bathroom, but the humidifier is only turned half way up and runs part time on low so I think effective. I do have a ceiling fan above the wood stove to circulate the air so maybe that is helping too, hadn't thought of that.
    THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!

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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    It could be the hygrometers causing the different readings. That is the conclusion I came to here in my studio.

    I have a "whole house" humidifier in the middle of one wall and the studio room is 24' square. I've got a hygrometer on each wall, plus the one in the humidifier itself. And I get 3 different readings with a difference of 3%-6%. Three different readings in the same room!

    So what do I do? I don't worry about it. I have noticed after many years that my instruments, which are all out hanging on the walls or stands, are quite happy when the readings are between 40% and 52%. My advice would be to relax about it, since you are adding sufficient humidity to your space.

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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    Same issue, same room size, I was talking to a luthier about it and he said if you are below 40% humidity, start to worry.
    So I purchased a hygrometer and found that I was generally in around 37%.
    I happened to purchase a used humidifier at a garage sale with auto shut off and high /low about 1 gallon capacity. The manual says about 12 hours per gallon, and so far that seems to be true.
    I left it on high with the door closed and it got up to 60, which felt a little moist to me, but to keep it in the high 40s ( which is my aim) seems a constant challenge.
    most of my mandos are in their case for the winter, I did not expect maintaining humidity in a 10 x 10 room would take such resources but, welcome to winter in the NE.
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    Registered User Drew Egerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    I run a Aircare "whole house" humidifier in the dining room which is about 20 ft from my "music room" where the instruments live. I have a digital hygrometer/thermometer in the music room and our Nest thermostat is in the hallway nearby. I adjust the setting on the humidifier based on what the hygrometer in the music room reads, which I generally try to keep at 50% give or take.
    I have found that I need to set the humidifier controller at more like 60%. It makes sense to me that the air directly around the humidifier will be the highest reading, but I care about the other room more.

    I also love that this humidifier holds 5 gallons, so there is less refilling. It is also evaporative instead of ultrasonic, so I don't get that white dust on everything like I did before. That stuff was also really clogging up my air filters before.
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    I run an Aircare too. We use the Space Saver model which takes up to 6 gallons of water. Aircare are the best humidifiers we've found. Low tech but they do what they're supposed to do with little fuss.

    The hygrometer on the humidifier says 65, the Hygrometer above my instruments says 46. My cased instruments are about 5 feet away. No way around this really as the humidifier can only measure RH right on top of itself. We generally keep the setting on 60 or 65 all winter which keeps the RH over 40, which is fine for us.

    Without the Aircare our house gets under 20%RH in the coldest months!
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    There typically are temperature variations in any given room and therefore relative humidity variations, even when the there is no variation in the amount of water per cubic foot of air.
    -Newtonamic

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    Registered User Scott Rucker's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    I have a two story house with an open floor plan. I run whole house console humidifiers on both floors. Both consoles have auto shut off settings for RH levels and I have three hygrometers in different rooms throughout the house. I adjust the humidifier settings based on the RH in the room where my instruments set out downstairs and my bedroom upstairs. I find that I have to set the humidifiers to higher levels than the typical 45-50% to get the right RH where it matters most, where my instruments are and where I sleep 7-8 hours a day.

    As an aside, I hate that the house I am in now has electric heat. It is excessively dry compared to natural and LP gases.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    Hygrometers must measure accurately and be periodically calibrated. A surprising amount aren’t accurately calibrated before you buy them. On top of that some just don’t measure accurately even after calibration. The one I recommend the most for size, accuracy, and price is the Cigar Oasis Caliber IV. They are most often well calibrated out of the box. To periodically check calibration use the Boveda calibration kits. They have kits for 75% and 32% calibration readings. 32 is closer than 75 to the range that we care about but you can use both. There are other ways to calibrate and other good hygrometers but this is a user friendly and cost effective option.

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    Registered User Mandobart's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    It's like the old joke - "a person with one watch knows what time it is. A person with 2 (or more) watches never knows the correct time." (Because the two are rarely in synch).

    As a former nuclear instrumentation and control tech, I have a better-than-layman's knowledge and experience regarding instrument accuracy, calibration, etc.

    On any consumer grade instrument it's typical to have a +/- accuracy of anywhere from 5 to10 % or more of full scale. So if an instrument has a calibration range from say 20% to 80%, and one hygrometer is off by -10% and the other is off by +10% they can easily differ by a non-trivial amount.

    People tend to put too much confidence in a digital readout.

    Of course at this point in the thread someone starts talking about a "salt bath calibration." IT DOESN'T EXIST. When you use a salt solution you're only doing a single point calibration CHECK. If you're not actually ADJUSTING the span, linearity, etc. using 5 cardinal points, you're not calibrating ANYTHING.

    That said, a salt test can provide a little insight on how to hygrometers compare at ONE SINGLE POINT. Then if you like you can apply a "correction factor" to each that MIGHT be accurate in a limited range.

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    Registered User Mandobart's Avatar
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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    Quote Originally Posted by Scott Rucker View Post
    ...As an aside, I hate that the house I am in now has electric heat. It is excessively dry compared to natural and LP gases.
    Heat is neither moist nor dry (unless you're in a steam bath). As temperature goes up, the air is now able to hold more water vapor. If you don't add water vapor, your RH will ALWAYS drop, no matter what your heat source is.

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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    Another consideration is elevation. Wet air is heavier than dry, and humidity in my room is always higher on the floor than 4 -5 ft up. Just one more variable to keep track of when comparing hygrometer measurements.

  18. #17

    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    Is the reading on the hygrometer reasonably close to the reading on the humidifier when they are in the same part of the room?

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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    Is wet air heavier (higher density) than dry air? Water molecules in the gaseous state are significantly lighter than both nitrogen or oxygen molecules. So to replace heavier molecules with lighter molecules by adding water to air will reduce the density. However if there were some condensed phase airborne water droplets present the density would increase.
    -Newtonamic

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    Default Re: Humidity different in same 10x10 room with humidifier in plac

    I live in a house built in 1938. It has thick brick walls but no insulation under the floors and minimal under the roof. So, temp and humidity control are ongoing issues. (There is a renovation coming to remedy some of those issues, but everything is crazy expensive right now). I use a whole house humidifier that attaches directly to the furnace and has it's own water supply. It's a life saver. It went down in the heart of winter last year (which is still not bad at all compared to the NE and midwest/west) and it was going to be a few days before we could get our HVAC guys out to check it out (as there were people with their heat out, I get it) so I moved all of my instruments into the small room with the baby grand (it's literally the only thing in there typically and fills the room pretty well. I pulled out all of the case humidifiers I had and we bought a couple of small room humidifiers (which with supply chain issues and demand were all we could find), closed the door, and we did our best to keep it 50% +/- in there. Everything came out fine, but, man, I was really happy to get the whole house unit up and running again. Refilling the humidifiers a couple of times a day and keeping up with the case humidifiers (I think I was using 4 of those) was a chore, though clearly a first world problem, LOL.

    FWIW, I think most of my instruments sound best in the 40-45% range, so I set the humidifier at 50% most of the time and it works pretty well. In summers I have two floor unit dehumidifiers I run pretty constantly.
    Chuck

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