I do what Judi mentioned. I have a couple of sets. One stays with my Taylor, the other set is in a closed container with (but not touching) a wet sponge. The sponge makes the air in the container very humid and the packs absorb the moisture as they are designed to do. When the set in the Taylor dries out, the other set is ready to go.
And you can buy the Boveda packs on Amazon a lot cheaper. Theyāre virtually identical to the DāAddario packs and fit in the sleeves.
Thanks Mark. Iām not against purchasing online - in fact I do frequently! But I live in a smallish college townā¦there isnāt much I need that I can buy locally. Seriously - the only kids store is a consignment shop, and I havenāt purchased a piece of clothing locally in years. So I suck it up (within reason) and do what I can to keep the local retail desert from getting dryer. That said, I bought that original DāAddario kit online because not one of the three guitar stores (college town!) in town had any type of hydration kit!
I think I will keep with my stated plan.
What Iāve learned in this thread has satisfied me as to what I think I want to do.
I will also be buying at my local music store. They have just what I want.
I like them (Dietze Music House). Iāve been buying much of my music gear from them since 1967 + or - a few years I suppose. It was a long time ago.
I want to support them in my local economy.
Plus, I donāt want to support online, the online donāt care about me or my woes. I will pay more sometimes (but not always), but I support local, not some rich tycoon type.
Besides, itās fun going in the music store. It was fun in '68 and itās still fun in '25ā¦
I feel Iām fortunate to have this option of going local.
Yeah, I have a local guitar store, and buy almost everything there. Iām perfectly willing to pay a little more for stuff in order to help assure that theyāll be around for the future.
@HappyCat No surprise here, but I did want to follow upā¦ this was satisfyingly successful. Mine refreshed in four days. I did set my sealed glass container (containing a dish of water and the packs) near a heater vent thinking it would increase the humidity in thereā¦donāt know if that helped or not. I forgot to use distilled water, but will do in the future.
This is good news @judi
It appeared to me that you had to just get new packs from DiAdderio in 2-6 months. And they are kinda expensive.
But,
I did get the DiAdderio humidipack maintain from my local music store yesterday.
Itās in place in my guitar case w/the guitar and I feel better now that at least Iām trying to help my guitar w/humidity control. Best I can at least.
fwiw,
As I was going to get the humidipack it dawned on me that, how am I gonna know if it is doing anything?
So I was just gonna go to the hardware store and get some kind of hygrometer but low and behold, the music store had one by DiAdderio. So I got that too. Donāt know if that was a good idea or not. That particular hygrometer has a pretty bad review on the www. Guess it fails and eats batteries. Oh well, again, at least Iām trying.
Side note as a new hygrometer I appears to work. Temp was same as my other thermometers in my house and the humidity was said it was 4% higher than the weather station inside humidity said.
No idea how long it takes to humidify a guitar but this morning the weather station says 26%, inside the guitar case has gone from I think 24% to 33%. This is good I think. Heading the right direction anyways.
Thanks for all the help from everyone contributing to this thread as to helping me decide what I think I needed to do.
I have one of these, and Iām not a big fan. It needs a new battery every few monthsā¦ It also has a lot of features that I donāt use.
I did the salt test for high humidity, and it came in within one percent of where it should be. I donāt have any way to test itās accuracy for low humidity, but it seems at least in the ballpark when it indicates under 40%ā¦thatās when my guitar seems to start to dry out.
On the other hand, any hygrometer is better than no hygrometer. Otherwise, you are just flying blind, and guessing at the actual humidity your guitar is being exposed to.
WRT Humidity pack versus damp spongeā¦
I find that the damp Kitchen sponge I throw in the bottom of the bag reliably raises the humidity at least 20%ā¦ Typically from around 30% to about 50 -55%. The guitar will start to re-humidify within 24 hours. The tuning typically goes sharp by two or three cents on each string, and the action goes up by about .005", as measured by my Dunlop string height gauge.
I have to re-wet it every three days or so.
BTW, I did an experiment, and left my guitar in the bathroom for about 20 minutes with the shower, running hot, and the fan off.
This measurably rehydrated the guitarā¦ Strings went sharp, and action went up slightly.
On the downsideā¦ There was a lot of condensation on the body (plastic on my Martin X series), but strangely, none on the solid wood topā¦
Iāve seen absolutely no problems after this one time treatment, but I donāt really see any advantages eitherā¦ And there are potential risks.
So Iām planning to keep using the damp sponge in the bag approach.