Is there any more reason to worry about the effect of humidity on wooden musical instruments than the effect on wooden furniture?

Humidifiers and dehumidifiers for use in cases probably can only provide for grams, not ounces, of water, and probably are only "effective" for a few hours.

Museums storing historic instruments for centuries may be a special case. Even there, conditions within display cases will change.

Good cases are valuable. They keep off rain, dust, splashed paint and small fingers, and minimize damages when dropped.

Most of the time I don't worry about humidity. It does get humid here in the central Pennsylvania ridge and valley system. We live in a valley about 40 feet from Honey Creek. I keep all my instruments in cases. We do have air conditioning but we don't run it all the time. I have more problems with low humidity than high humidity.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."

updated by @ken-longfield: 07/03/26 02:43:22PM

For temporary use, one could probably throw a few "Desi-Paks" in the instrument case, such as can be seen when electronic items are first unpacked.  Just a thought.

 luckily we don't have to worry about it here in the San Francisco Bay Area I was just curious how they deal with it  Back East. The humidity back there sounds brutal

John, if you live in a really humid environment, the easiest thing to do would be to get a room dehumidifier.  My father uses a couple in the basement of his house in Boston where he stores all his books.  You could protect your instruments and everything else from humidity and mold.

But if you are looking for something to put in your instrument case, look for something called a "two way" humidification system.  That will humidify when the environment is dry and dehumidify when it is humid.  I'm not sure exactly how (or even if) they work.  Supposedly they keep humidity in the middle of the safe range, which is around 50 percent or so.

--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

Hello out there, another dumb question.  Just curious how do you people back east  deal with the high humidity and your instruments? I have noticed on the internet there are a lot of products that you put in your instrument case, for regulating humidity to add humidity, so what do you do in order to deal with dehumidification?