Rotating Cigars and Humidity

**ashauler** · 12-06-2006, 02:05 PM

Thanks for the info shelby07!! I have a question for you.

I have noticed over the past few days that my humi is fluctuating between 67 and 70 rh daily. In the mornings and overnight it is on the low end, but during the day as the room heats up, it goes up to 70. The humi is not in direct sunlight, but is in a room with southern exposure so it is a relatively warm room during the day.

I only have one humi, 100 ct (photo's in the pics of your humidor thread) and use a cooler for what overflow that I have. I just recently bought a digital hygrometer with a "base" station that will handle up to 3 transmitters. I use the base to monitor the rooms temp and rh, and the transmitter is in the humi. When I can I will pick up another transmitter for the cooler.

But anyway, is this type of fluctuation to be expected, or should I be concerned? The actual room is about 51 rh, and seems to stay pretty constant. I don't understand where the up/down movement inside the humi is coming from. I use a credo style humidifier with 50/50 PG solution and when I recharge it I usually put some dry cedar blocks in to keep it from spiking too high.

**Shelby07** · 12-06-2006, 03:56 PM

Originally Posted by ashauler

Thanks for the info shelby07!! I have a question for you.

I have noticed over the past few days that my humi is fluctuating between 67 and 70 rh daily. In the mornings and overnight it is on the low end, but during the day as the room heats up, it goes up to 70. The humi is not in direct sunlight, but is in a room with southern exposure so it is a relatively warm room during the day.

I only have one humi, 100 ct (photo's in the pics of your humidor thread) and use a cooler for what overflow that I have. I just recently bought a digital hygrometer with a "base" station that will handle up to 3 transmitters. I use the base to monitor the rooms temp and rh, and the transmitter is in the humi. When I can I will pick up another transmitter for the cooler.

But anyway, is this type of fluctuation to be expected, or should I be concerned? The actual room is about 51 rh, and seems to stay pretty constant. I don't understand where the up/down movement inside the humi is coming from. I use a credo style humidifier with 50/50 PG solution and when I recharge it I usually put some dry cedar blocks in to keep it from spiking too high.

This is actually very understandable. We usually measure outdoor temperature but rarely pay attention to outdoor humidity. Just as the temperature inside the humidor changes with the outside air, so does the humidity. The major contributor to the humidity in the air is heating. During the day the sun heats the earth which causes evaporation and the humidity goes up. At night the earth cools so the humidity drops.

Remember a couple of things. One, the humidor is designed to seal, but it also is designed to exchange a small amount of air so the gasses don't build up. This is the reason you have to open up a coolidor occasionally but you don't need to worry about a humidor. Second, the humidification device doesn't correct immediately, it works slowly over time. Third, your humidistat doesn't record the amount of moisture in the cigar (which is what you are really concerned with) but it records the amount of moisture in the ambient air inside of the humidor.

So at night, humidity drops. The humidor does a great job of keeping the inside contained, but the inside humidity is still affected by the ambient humidity outside of the humidor. As the outside humidity drops perhaps as much as 20-30 points I would expect that the humidity inside of the humidor would also drop somewhat. But the fluctuation of a few percentage points inside the humidor over a 24 hour period is not going to change the relative moisture inside the cigars enough to worry about.