Humidity and Mandolins

[xiledscot]

Following on from a very helpful reply from "Lonewolf" re humidity and musical instruments especially Mandolins.
I suppose it is something that I never paid much attention !
I certainly keep all of my instruments in their case at night but have become lazy during the day and generally leave them out on a stand.
Am I being naive? Is it just luck that I have had no issues with humidity?
I would be interested to hear if others take precautions (with their instruments) and if so what do they use?

[allenhopkins]

Humidity's a major concern, especially in a Canadian Maritimes winter when your stove/furnace is working 24/7 and drying out the interior of your house. At least you're not in the Nevada desert, but you need to think about it.

I've found the Taylor Guitars "Tech Sheets" (http://www.taylorguitars.com/global/pdfs/greatest_hits.pdf) on humidity helpful. They're targeted toward guitar owners, but much of the info applies to any wooden stringed instrument.

Main step to take, IMHO, is to get a reliable hygrometer (humidity gauge) from a hardware store, and use it to test the relative humidity where your instruments are kept. If it's consistently low, say 40% or lower, either a room humidifier, or in-case humidifiers for each instrument, may be indicated.

If you haven't had problems so far (tops cracking, ends of frets protruding past the side of the neck, pronounced changes in "action" on your instruments), probably your humidity's within acceptable range, but a hygrometer will give you actual measurement.