Acoustic humidifiers

I have a couple of acoustic guitars and have never used an in-case humidifier while they were not being played.  Recently I found a Planer Waves humidifier while cleaning up/reorganizing my musical stuff.  Both guitars are 15+ years old at this point and I wonder if there's any reason to start the humidifier now.  What do you think?

Solid top acoustic guitars tend to be most comfortable in the 40%-50% Relative Humidity range.  They can typically tolerate a few days in lower % RH (30's), but you'll notice the top sinking and will begin to get fret buzz issues and a thin tone.  Conversely, high humidity (60%+) is okay for a couple days, but  you'll start to get the top bulging a bit, fretted notes will sound sharp and out of tune, and the overall tone of the guitar will sound more dull and fat than normal.

Question - are your acoustics solid top or laminated top?  Lam tops tend to suffer humidity changes far less that solid topped acoustics -- You'll probably have more issues with fretboard shrinking and sharp fret ends than cracked/sunken top in the winter.  Southern states don't tend to suffer Winter humidity issues as bad as the northern states that have their home furnaces cranked up October-April.  Without whole house humidifiers, forced air furnaces will dry out the air in the house to below 20% RH.  This low a RH level can wreak havoc on a solid wood acoustic guitar.

I'm in the Chicago area and, even with a whole house humidifier installed, I still pack the guitars away in their cases with individual humidifiers between approx. November until the end of March.  You simply can't keep the humidity in the house cranked up to 40% RH when the temps drop below 20F - That extra moisture and cold temps can cause long term structural issues.

gtrdaddy said:

Hey Tommy, Martin keeps their shop between 45-55%. In the warm months when you run your air conditioner, it humidifies the air. In my home with A/C running the indoor hygrometers typically read between 40-45% during dry weather. Occasionally it may dip to 38%, but not lower. When we get a week of rain with A/C running, it will tip 50-55% and rarely gets above that. If it does it's strictly short term and won't stay there long enough to bother anything.

In the winter months, that's another story. When running our A/C the hygrometers bottom out at 20%. I usually run a humidifier in the music room to keep it at 45%.

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Thanks for your input.  I have a whole house humidifier for the first floor of my house, but the controller is in another room.  I need to get a gauge for the music room to keep better track of it where it's important.