Humidity vs Gear

[jaguarundi]

I'm troubleshooting a situation in my studio and would love to hear some opinions here. I live in Southern California and we have no AC in our house, when heat waves come through as they do a few times every summer, our house equalizes with the outdoors temperature, unfortunately.

Now this creates obvious issues in the studio are, first off as I'm a guitarist and high heat/low humidity is like a death recipe for guitars. We're trying to come up with a cheap temporary solution as our landlord wants to eventually put in central air.

I was looking into getting a swamp/evaporative cooler for the studio. If you're not familiar, its like a humidifier that cools the room by 10 or so degrees, which could be enough to save the guitars. However, I'm wondering if I were to do that, humidify the studio so it was super high humidity in there all the time, if the water vapor would/could have adverse effects on our electronic studio gear/computers/keyboards, hardware. . .

I'm pretty sure 100 degree indoor temps for 7 hours straight can't be good so I'm trying to figure out whether we could get away with a swamp cooler or if we should try to do a window unit instead. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Adam

[kslight]

I've not used as an evaporative cooler as I don't live in the south, what level of humidity would it bring the room to? I think if it was nominal, not "water dripping down the walls" it'd be okay, but obviously a window unit or central air would be more ideal. Humidity and high heat plus hot electronics is generally not so great a combination though.

[jaguarundi]

did a little research, looks like they produce about 50-70% humidity depending on a few factors.

[Waltz Mastering]

I was looking into getting a swamp/evaporative cooler for the studio. If you're not familiar, its like a humidifier that cools the room by 10 or so degrees, which could be enough to save the guitars. However, I'm wondering if I were to do that, humidify the studio so it was super high humidity in there all the time, if the water vapor would/could have adverse effects on our electronic studio gear/computers/keyboards, hardware. . .

Seems like you'd want less humidity,... not more. I would look into buying a de-humidifier. To much moister in the air is not good for guitars or electronic gear...causes rust etc.

Somewhere around 40-55% is ideal.

[dfuruta]

50% humidity is probably fine...for musical instruments, somewhere around 40% is ideal. Lower than 30% or so is bad.

[Mystic Steamship Co.]

70% humidity would be bad for your gear, especially condenser mics. I have a basement studio and humidity is a problem. I keep my acoustic guitars in there cases with small humidifiers in the case, and plan on getting a dehumidifier this summer. I've seen some humidifier/dehumidifier combo units that seem like a good idea so you can keep a constant humidity level all year long. Especially here in Massachusetts, where all the buildings are so old and the seasons change drastically, it's something I really have to worry about.

[KoffeeKommando]

Swamp cooler will only lower the temps by 20 deg. They can't do any better due to limitations in the tech. This said, they are great out in the drylands for comfort and low cost.

But, they might drive the humidity too high for gear. Especially in a small space. You might need a combo unit of some sort. Let me see what's out there.

Sanyo makes efficient "mini-splits" that can handle air conditioning and be run to remote rooms. $900. They don't do anything to humidity but drive it down I bet.

[Producer/Engineer]

"as our landlord wants to eventually put in central air" - you don't really believe that do you? Sorry to be so blunt!
Why not seal the room from all air leaks and put in a small, energy efficient AC wall unit in the window?

[Darlington Pair]

70% humidity would be bad for your gear, especially condenser mics. I have a basement studio and humidity is a problem. I keep my acoustic guitars in there cases with small humidifiers in the case, and plan on getting a dehumidifier this summer. I've seen some humidifier/dehumidifier combo units that seem like a good idea so you can keep a constant humidity level all year long. Especially here in Massachusetts, where all the buildings are so old and the seasons change drastically, it's something I really have to worry about.

I have a basement studio, I have to keep it humidified in the winter and de-humidified in the summer, not just for the sake of my instruments but for my Space Echoes, Space Echoes HATE humidity, it was a constant battle when I lived in Florida, not really good for any tape, but those poor machines that are completely capstan powered have little chance of dragging sticky tape across heads.