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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 13:04:03 GMT
Due to a heady mix of Ebay and Alcohol over the years i have too many guitars and no room to keep them. I have tried selling some but people don’t want to cough up what they are worth and i’m not giving them away. Is the attic a bad choice to store them? Would the variations in temp ruin them?
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Post by bleatoid on Dec 10, 2018 13:39:23 GMT
I don’t think it would do them any good bellyshere - we have a house with attic space conversions and one room would make a great little music room, but even with insulation and heating, the temperature extremes are pretty significant so I wouldn’t keep my guitars up there, even in cases - despite the fact that, as I understand it, humidity extremes are the real killer. So I have a tiny little music room and rely on wall hangers to make space - keeping them on internal walls only. Peter
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 13:56:13 GMT
I thought as much to be fair. Need a bigger house then.
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Post by jangarrack on Dec 10, 2018 14:55:54 GMT
To add to the good advice you already have from bleatoid, I recently carried out some work on our loft for installing a positive pressure system and made some interesting and worrying discoveries that I would otherwise have been unaware of. Firstly, there was the lack of adequate ventilation, caused partly by the insulation covering the fascia air vents, resulting in enough condensation to soak the top layer of insulation and damage most possessions that had been stored in the loft. Secondly, on remotely monitoring the loft temperature, I found that it ranged from the low outside night temperatures to much higher temperatures building up quickly in the daytime as the sun hit the roof. On hot summer days, I have recorded temperatures exceeding 40 degrees C. The ventilation and condensation issues have been fixed, but general humidity and temperature fluctuations are characteristic of the loft space so there is no way I would store guitars up there. I expect others will have lofts without these issues so views may differ.
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Post by andyhowell on Dec 10, 2018 15:28:43 GMT
It they are in decent cases you should be OK. I stored a Martin case in the cellar for a long time 9no guitar inside). The case is fine but it looks a bit manky now!
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 15:32:25 GMT
It is a fairly dry attic but it gets real cold and real hot. I thought of guitar hangers up the stairs and tried to put it to the Mrs as an art installation. That didn’t fly well.
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Post by PistolPete on Dec 10, 2018 16:23:05 GMT
It completely goes against all the advice & I'm pretty sure I wouldn't risk it with my instruments, that said I have met a couple of guitars over the years that had reportedly been stored in attics with no apparent ill effects.
I suppose it's possible that's down to the ones that ended up in a skip not being around to play anymore.
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Post by dreadnought28 on Dec 10, 2018 17:23:50 GMT
It is a fairly dry attic but it gets real cold and real hot. I thought of guitar hangers up the stairs and tried to put it to the Mrs as an art installation. That didn’t fly well. I have a humidifier and a dehumidifier to cover humidity fluctuations. It dropped to 25% in my living room last March when The Beast from the East hit. I, most certainly, would nor risk your attic if there are extremes, no way.......
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Post by curmudgeon on Dec 10, 2018 18:26:08 GMT
Hi. In 1983 I contracted a condition called sarcoidosis. It seized up all my joints and made playing guitar (and pretty much everything else) impossible for a number of years.
Sickened by seeing my Martin D35, my Dobro and my Vanden mandolin, sitting there when I couldn't play them - I had my wife put them in the attic.
There they stayed for ten summers and winters.
The house was relatively new back then but the attic was not as well insulated as we expect nowadays. We also lost a quarter of the roofing in the October '87 gale.
In 1993 after leaving my corporate life, I thought I might try to re-learn to play again and we got them down.
The Martin was not in a Martin case but an old Guilt one that had gone slightly mouldy.
When I cautiously opened it up my D'35 sat there in fine condition, and it was even relatively in tune with itself. The Dobro and Vanden F5 - much the same.
All of those instruments left home many years ago, but the D35 is now with a friend of mine who plays it almost every night. He has cared for it even less than I did, and it could do with a reset now.
I certainly don't recommend treating instruments like this, but it is amazing how such things can result in no problems.
Storage is also a challenge for me as my house is a modest '80s three bed detached.
I installed a shelf above the stairs ensuring that it was higher than head height, and I can store five TKL type guitar cases there. Further, it seems to be the most stable part of the house as far as temperature and RH is concerned.
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 18:33:56 GMT
I won’t do it. They would be frightened up there in the dark anyway.
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Post by bleatoid on Dec 10, 2018 18:45:26 GMT
Just thinking laterally, bellyshere, if you stored your wife in the attic, would that make more room for your guitars in the house, perhaps?
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 18:49:13 GMT
Oh yes. Especially if i chuck all her stuff up with her.
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 22:59:57 GMT
On second thoughts i’m just as equally attached to me gal. Are you allowed to refer to your other half as me gal anymore? It’s a confusing world. I could put the youth in the attic. It might encourage him to get his own place. Or, being Xmas be nice and stop ebaying.
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Post by bleatoid on Dec 10, 2018 23:20:09 GMT
No bellyshere, I'm afraid you can't use the phrase "me gal" these days without fear of prosecution. May I suggest a more appropriate term of endearment might be "mammal of unspecified species, gender, race, religion, height, colour, political persuasion, sexual preference, orientation or aspiration with whom I may or may not, without prejudice, be engaged in a relationship platonic or otherwise". "The youth" is just fine.
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Post by bellyshere on Dec 10, 2018 23:22:38 GMT
No bellyshere, I'm afraid you can't use the phrase "me gal" these days without fear of prosecution. May I suggest a more appropriate term of endearment might be "mammal of unspecified species, gender, race, religion, height, colour, political persuasion, sexual preference, orientation or aspiration with whom I may or may not, without prejudice, be engaged in a relationship platonic or otherwise". "The youth" is just fine. Ha Ha. Stupid world. Guitars and music still make sense anyway.
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