I am a crazy plant lover so I keep my harp near my plants. My plants have gravel trays for humidity. Hence, my humidity during winter is spot on perfect. Just a thought if you are a plant lover.

You need to humidify the whole room, not just the harp, which would be very difficult to do. You don’t need to cover it when you are not using it. The humidifier you use should put out invisible humidified air. It should not look like steam or vapor. If the air coming out of the humidifier is invisible, then you can put the humidifier right next to the harp and have it blowing directly on the harp. It won’t cause any damage, and the humidity will be highest close to the humidifier. The farther you get from the humidifier the lower the humidity will be. Harps don’t dry out instantly. It takes time, and the damage that can occur from too dry air usually shows up at the end of the winter. If the room where the harp is is fairly large, I would buy a humidifier that holds 6 gallons of cold water or more and keep it running all the time.

Lily, I agree with all that has been posted. Don’t cover the harp, and do humidify the whole room the harp is in. But check your humidity level first, before you try to change anything. You may not need to add humidity! Ideally, I keep my house between 40 and 60 percent humidity, and usually aim for 50%. Good luck!

Harp Hugs,
Balfour

Hi, Carl,

Where can such a humidifier be purchased? I’ve never seen a type which humidifies invisibly; that sounds fascinating! What are some specific brands that you know of that make such a humidifier, and what do you look for on the packaging to know whether a particular humidifier is of this type?

Thank you,

Gregg

They are usually marketed as “console humidifiers” and the larger ones look like a piece of furniture. The wicks will need replacing depending on the hardness of your water.

You can also do a similar thing for a whole house if you have a forced air HVAC system. Aprilaire is the largest brand for those. Or Honeywell and Carrier make a model for central forced air that is water vapor evaporated by electricity directly–no droplets for that kind either. I’ve had the Carrier unit for years; it is rated at 30+ gal per day if that much is needed. During the “polar vortex” just before Christmas, it ran much of the time, but kept the whole house at 50%.

A church I was working in at the same time was running at 5%. That church used to have central humidification, but didn’t fix it when it broke years ago. Too expensive. I wonder how expensive it will seem when they have to replace the soundboard and pinblock in their 9′ Steinway, let alone repair the $2M pipe organ. A couple of years ago, a customer had well over $100,000 damage to an organ from low humidity when a polar vortex came through–and someone turned up the heat to make the building “feel” comfortable–and that part of the organ was in the back of the room at the top of the balcony. It passed 95 degrees in the organ, and the windchest had splits you could put a finger into that were once solid wood.

Hi Gregg,

The gist of the type of humidifier I am talking about is that there is a reservoir of unheated water that is absorbed into some kind of absorbent material, and there is a fan blowing on that soaking wet material, thereby evaporating the water into the air. I have a large living room and I keep two such humidifiers running all winter. Each one holds about 7 gallons of water, and there is an absorbent belt that rotates through the reservoir of water and then comes up in front of the fan. When it is really cold out and very dry, I have to fill both humidifiers every two or three days. The two that I have are both at least 30 years old! I have to put a couple of drops of sewing machine oil in each motor at the beginning of each season, and then they run fine all winter long. Charles and Bill are much more versed in this than I am. I would look for the type of machine they each talk about.