Humidity Control???

I've been told that the amount of humidity in my apartment is crucial to the (health?) of my guitars. Too low can dry dry them out and too much can warp them.Is this true? and if so how much humidity should be in the air of my home? I have forced air heat and the cats are always full of static so I know that the humidity is real low in here.

We use a couple of Vick's Steam humidifiers in the winter and they help a lot !

They are less work and do a better job than the ones with a wick and a fan.

i use those 2....but how often are u supposed to resoak them? i do that every 2 wks

The Vicks ones just have a little heating element that needs cleaning periodically.

We always had to keep disinfecting and replacing the wick ones and that was a nightmare !!

[font=trebuchet ms]Your profile doesn't say where you are, but some places are just so dry (or wet) that there's not much you can do about it. If a guitar has stabilised and the ambient conditions don't fluctuate radically, it's OK. What will hurt an instrument is sudden change. If you are able to get the humidity in your house up to say, 45%, and your guitar gets used to that, it will be very unhappy if you take out for a gig at a club where the humidity is only 30%. Quick temperature changes are rough on it as well. You will find that the stage lights cause tuning problems because they heat up your guitar.[/font]

thanks for the info guys. I'm going to get one of those vicks humidifiers. I don't have any worries about the temp change from stage lights or clubs because i don't play well enough for that sort of thing so they don't leave the house. As for where I live, I'm in Philadelphia so I get all four seasons but the weather does cange gradually.