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ok, here goes. in the warm summer months in colorado, i leave my cooler running pretty much all day. this creates much more humidity in the house than is regularly here, and with all the air movement has an effect on my humidors. where my normal humidity in the house there is below 20 percent, now the humidity where my humidors sits is roughly in the 70s. (it's right in the path of the cooler) but now where my humidors used to stay at about 67 percent humidity, they're up to the high 70s. i've checked the seals on them, and i don't get into them much, but they humidity is still higher than i'm comforable with. i found some old cedar dividers and empty boxes that i broke up and put pieces of in my humi, thinking those would absorb some of the excess moisture. it made a difference for a couple hours, but then it went back up too high. i've removed all humidification sources except beads. does anyone have any other recommendations for what i can do to bring that down? with the exception of switching over to central air. i could always move the humidors to another room, but i'd prefer not too as the other room where i could put them is much warmer, and i will probably run into the same problem, just with a different cause. please help!
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I would say to dry out your beads and throw them back in the humi, they should suck out any excess humidity in there. You may have to dry them out again every once in a while, but it should drop your humidity.
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"Spokesd!ck"
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they're actually almost purely white bro. will air movement in there help? i think i could wire the fans on my hydra to be on all the time (i even took the hydra out of the antietam to get that water source out of there. but i've been taking the beads out and letting them dry in case. think more air movement will have any affect? everything is smoking fine, i just don't want to open up some box i haven't opened in a while and be greeted by a bunch of mold.
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i've got the same problem on a chronic basis down here in the jungle. i actually put both a dessicant (hardware store stuff) and a humidity element in the same cooler. the sticks are in otterboxes with the element and the pressure relief screw open to provide a little air opening. the dessicant is out in the cooler space. basically creates an artificial dry atmosphere around the humidor using the big cooler space. the two extremes work against each other nicely. not set and forget, but it's a good compromise.
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I never understood having beads with an active system. Your pumping out water from the machine and the beads are sucking it up. It seems like an either or to me from theory. When mine gets high, I just set the device down 1 or 2 % and watch it.
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if the situation becomes desperate, go get yourself a container of damprid and try a few tablespoons in a small tupperware. Also, disconnect/unplug or remove your active system. Taf is right. And even unplugged it will increase the humidity as long as there is some water in the unit (evaporation)
But to be honest, I wouldn't worry too much about 70% humidity. Many stores maintain this and higher levels. Above 74 is when I would start to worry.
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thanks skipper. i put an oust fan in the one i was having problems with. and a bunch of little sheets of cedar and dividers i could find in there, and i THINK (with fingers crossed) i've got it to an acceptable humidity level. it's still a little higher than i like (about 72) but i think i'm out of the danger zone.