Humidity and Laminated Body

Just saw your other post, and that is a solid top guitar.

Nothing much to be done in humid environments. Guitars want to be around 45. Indoors you won't go so high that it'll cause problems. The only guitars I've seen really suffer from too much natural humidity were in Hawaii. The top might puff up and make it a bit harder to play in the summer, but not a big deal.

Some people will get so paranoid about drying the guitar out that they'll add humidifiers when the weather doesn't warrant it, and you can over humidify a guitar pretty dramatically that way. If in doubt, just get a decent hygrometer for the room so you have a guide to know when you start/stop humidifier use in the months when it is necessary to take the guess work out.

This is all for the top. The back won't care.

My house is at 66% right now, and that's with the windows closed since the night before last (I don't have a/c). Gets as low as the upper twenties in the winter. Some of my guitars are bothered by the fluctuation, some aren't. Two notable complainers are a Firebird and a D-18; the neck on the former gets squirrely and the latter's top blew up like a balloon the first couple of summers and settled itself into the look of a thirty year old non-babied guitar. Thankfully Martin reset the neck when they (for the second time in four years) had it in to fix the ever-shrinking binding. It's stable now, and because of it I've devoted a room to the guitars which is kept at the proper moisture level. I also have a Blueridge J-45 copy that is a stalwart despite being all solid wood and living it's first five years in an upstairs apartment with 40s era insulation and no humidity control. It sits out most of the time and only needs a truss rod adjustment twice a year. I bought it new in 2007 and the top has barely distorted. Go figure...

Ricky, I would say get a hygrometer for the case and keep the guitar in there when you aren't playing it; keep track of the moisture and adjust as necessary. If your house isn't super well sealed and hydrated in the winter then you're gonna see a decent fluctuation over the course of the year.

You'll get mildew any time you'd get mildew in other places. The times I've seen mold is either if someone is storing the instrument in an otherwise non-livable place, or they got stupid with humidifying it. As in, taking the biggest sponge you can find, soaking it, and putting it straight in the case. Also, a couple that got dropped in a lake or something. It shouldn't get mildew any faster than anything else in your living space.

If you keep it where you're comfortable living, you're doing the best you can. Dehumidifying an area for guitars just isn't practical. I'll puff up a bit. If it is really bad, you may want a summer saddle and a winter saddle for when the action goes back and forth.

Hmm, why do you think that dehumidifying isn't practical? 84% is way out of range...