Temperature/humidity and guitars

[Dash4814]

I can't keep them in tune when I play them. Any of them.

 

The house isn't insulated well, so it will get a bit chilly, then the heat kicks in and dries out the air/heats it. I'll pick up a guitar and it'll feel cold, I tune it, play a few chords, some strings go out of tune, I tune again, etc., over and over again. I can't get through more than a few minutes of playing before the strings go out of tune again.

 

I've never had an issue like this before. I've always wound my strings the same way and never had this issue.

 

What can I do? A humidifier, maybe? But that wouldn't fix the temperature issue.

[Armitage]

Things under pressure don't like change... in either temperature or humidity.

[artiem]

Had the exact same problems...back when the cold weather kicked in, the 3-4 guitars I had out of their cases all went out of whack. Tuning issues all the time + one developed a fret buzz that it never had before. I went on a major humidity-management crusade. Picked up four Acu-Rite indoor temp/humidity gauges at Home Depot (~$10 ea), placed them around the house, and for a week just kept tabs on the humidity in various parts of the house...you'd be surprised how much the humidity varies between rooms & floors. Some mornings, my ambient humidity was dropping down to 28-32% which is pretty low--esp. considering my home is well-insulated AND I already have a whole-house humidifer system attached to my furnace.

 

Then I picked up a Honeywell indoor humidifer on the 'Bay (

 

So there's one more potential thing for guitar players to obsess about. Still can't get rid of the damn fret buzz on my Agile, however.