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Temperature for guitar room...


uk_lefty
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I recently had the back end of my garage turned in to an office. Waterproof roof, insulated raised floor, insulated ceiling, insulated plasterboard walls, double glazed UPVC window, electric heater. It looks amazing and will be a great office for home working. It also needs to double up as my guitar room. I've got two kids now so eventually the "spare" room isn't going to be spare anymore. So my guitars which are three electric basses and an electro acoustic guitar ideally need to live in this office room, as well as amps and sundries. I want to take very good care of these guitars as well as other stuff in the room so I want to set the heating up to protect the pc monitors etc. from cold and damp. 

In an ideal world what temperature would that be to hold the room at? 

For a good enough to do the job what temperature should I set it to not drop below? 

Will it make a difference if the instruments are stacked up in their cases vs out on stands? 

 

Thank you

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I'd try and stop it from freezing, but other than that you shouldn't do any long term damage. Any changes are going to affect the tuning/intonation/setup though, so best to keep it as close to 'warm' as you feasibly can. Balance it with energy costs/polar bears/Greta Thunberg concerns.

 

Mine live in my office as well. I never really have the heating on at home but the office has two computers, a server and a fish tank, so between all of those it doesn't ever get that cold if I keep the door closed. It's like free heating. Sort of.

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On 17/10/2019 at 16:43, Jus Lukin said:

I think the rule of thumb for instruments and electronics is not to leave them anywhere you wouldn't be comfortable yourself...

On 17/10/2019 at 16:43, Jus Lukin said:

...Cases are definitely good

Dunno about you, but I doubt I'd be very comfortable in a bass case 😁

 

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11 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

Dunno about you, but I doubt I'd be very comfortable in a bass case 😁

I’ll be appearing on next season’s Grand Designs documenting the ups and downs of my bass case refurb from specialist instrument container to modern utilitarian living space.

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That sounds like a fine space and I wish you joy with it. A few comments to add to what others have said:

 

On 17/10/2019 at 08:47, Frank Blank said:

Certainly with guitars it’s more the humidity I think. I have a thermometer/humidity monitor in the old music room, what, what, but I can’t for the life of me remember the safe humidity zone so to speak that guitars should be kept between...

Yes, humidity is much more likely to be a problem. Electro-acoustics tend to be more vulnerable, so I'd certainly aim to keep that in its case. A humidity level of 40-60% should be fine. Guitar humidification systems, and hygrometers to measure ambient humidity, are relatively inexpensive ways to reduce the risks.

 

On 18/10/2019 at 07:26, Jack said:

I'd try and stop it from freezing, but other than that you shouldn't do any long term damage. Any changes are going to affect the tuning/intonation/setup though...

The more you can reduce temperature fluctuations, the better. That might mean identifying the most stable area of the room before deciding where the instruments should live.

 

On 17/10/2019 at 08:43, Jus Lukin said:

Cases are definitely good as they not only offer protection from knocks, but also slightly slow down any changes in temperature and humidity around the instrument...

All true. Keeping instruments in their cases is by far the better option in my view, especially if you are concerned about temperature and humidity. A guitar in a case can survive a great deal.

The dealer I bought my guitar from kept each instrument in its case, and each case stored horizontally on a shelving unit with one case per shelf. You could probably fit four cases on shelves under a counter-height (or even desk-height) top. That might be efficient in a combined office/studio.

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On 23/10/2019 at 13:57, adamg67 said:

What you have got in the way of ventilation? It's easy to try and have everything nice and insulated but you need a bit of air movement as well.

A UPVC double glazed window with a trickle vent that I've only just opened today. Now that I've got all the essentials in the room I don't think I'll have space to have guitars out of cases sadly. Will just need to be neatly in cases in here unless being used. I think I'll be leaving the electro acoustic in the house somewhere if I can. 

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