Weird Question

[MichiganM]

My cabinet humi has dropped RH in the past couple weeks and seems to be holding steady at about 58 percent. I have three hygros in there, all have been pretty well calibrated and they all say the same thing. I have well over a lb of beads, but I do know the seal isn't the best. The weird thing though is that probably 95 percent of the beads are clear, and they haven't changed in the past couple weeks, I haven't added a drop of water. What do you think is going on here?

 

[Electric Sheep]

Your cabinet must be broken. My wine cooler holds 65% all day, every day. You should definitely buy a wine cooler instead. Tell you what, since we're all friends here, I'll send you $200 to go buy a wine cooler from Target, and in return you can just send me that worthless, broken cabinet.

:rofl:

 

[RigilKent]

hahaha not sure whats wrong. if the seal was bad you think the beads would just keep releasing moisture. idk

 

[Headbanger]

Was the door open for an extended time before this? How much drop from the normal RH? New items added or removed recently? The beads might be working but they are slow to replenish RH. Maybe add an active Oasis or Hydra system down low. Use the beads up high to absorb extra RH. Good luck brother, keep us posted.

 

[Jwrussell]

Wow, what's up with all the RH problems recently? Craziness, I say! Are the hygros the recalibrated ones or no? Just curious.

Next question: how long has it been since you changed the batteries in you hygros? Did you get them all at the same time? Is it possible they all need new batteries? I know that's one hell of a long shot, just asking.

I'm curious to see the answers to Steve's questions as they sound like the most likely scenario.

 

[dpricenator]

Wow, what's up with all the RH problems recently? QUOTE]

I blame global warming:thumbsup:

 

[MichiganM]

Was the door open for an extended time before this? How much drop from the normal RH? New items added or removed recently? The beads might be working but they are slow to replenish RH. Maybe add an active Oasis or Hydra system down low. Use the beads up high to absorb extra RH. Good luck brother, keep us posted.

I added a few boxes of cigars a couple weeks ago, but the beads are almost completely clear. I know they're a buffer and therefore slower than active humidification...but I mean there has been no change in color in 2 weeks. It's really strange. The door was not opened for an extended period.

 

[MichiganM]

Wow, what's up with all the RH problems recently? Craziness, I say! Are the hygros the recalibrated ones or no? Just curious.

Next question: how long has it been since you changed the batteries in you hygros? Did you get them all at the same time? Is it possible they all need new batteries? I know that's one hell of a long shot, just asking.

I'm curious to see the answers to Steve's questions as they sound like the most likely scenario.

The hygros were calibrated just a couple weeks ago using the salt test. Even accounting for a couple points of error within the salt test themselves, all three hygros are reading quite low for what the cab should be. The seal on the cabinet is pretty good, but there are a couple spots you can see light through on a flashlight test. Not usually a big deal, usually I would just find myself adding water more often...but instead the beads aren't releasing moisture. Weird!

 

[oneaday]

Fix the bad seal, your problems will go away. The give away is that it is holding steady at 58 RH. When the beads go white the RH will start to drop due to the bad seal. They will go white eventually depending on how bad the seal is. You could also remedy the problem by putting more beads in to compensate for the bad seal but anything you do will be guess work until you fix the seal.

 

[MichiganM]

Fix the bad seal, your problems will go away. The give away is that it is holding steady at 58 RH. When the beads go white the RH will start to drop due to the bad seal. They will go white eventually depending on how bad the seal is. You could also remedy the problem by putting more beads in to compensate for the bad seal but anything you do will be guess work until you fix the seal.

But wouldn't the beads start to turn white already? They have been clear for over 2 weeks with no moisture release at all. I would think if you had a seal that wasn't perfect than your beads would go white faster and due to the buffer nature you would never achieve a humidity level you were after unless you had something strong enough to counteract the loss of RH through the seal. And the seal hasn't changed since I bought it and it was holding pretty good at about 63 before a couple weeks ago.

 

[MichiganM]

Your cabinet must be broken. My wine cooler holds 65% all day, every day. You should definitely buy a wine cooler instead. Tell you what, since we're all friends here, I'll send you $200 to go buy a wine cooler from Target, and in return you can just send me that worthless, broken cabinet.

:rofl:

Hey Duane I offered it for sale about a month ago, when it was still in the shipping box! Where were ya then?

:rofl:

 

[oneaday]

But wouldn't the beads start to turn white already? They have been clear for over 2 weeks with no moisture release at all. I would think if you had a seal that wasn't perfect than your beads would go white faster and due to the buffer nature you would never achieve a humidity level you were after unless you had something strong enough to counteract the loss of RH through the seal. And the seal hasn't changed since I bought it and it was holding pretty good at about 63 before a couple weeks ago.

Unless the RH outside your cab is steady at 58 RH or higher, there has to be some moisture release from the beads. Temp differences? More or less cigars? The seal deteriorating?
How long did you go between hydrations of the beads before?

 

[Jwrussell]

Dude! Send that sum-biatch back!

The single most important design attribute of a Humidor is its ability to hold humidity.
Our Humidors are produced using SureSeal™ Technology standards to insure the lid seals properly.

Every humidor goes through our proprietary inspection process on the production line before it receives the SureSeal™ stamp of approval. These tests are executed across the entire product line to make sure our humidors will function properly and preserve your cigars for years to come.

and

Lifetime Warranty

At the very least get yourself a replacement with a good seal! You are outside their money back guarantee, but there's no reason to deal with a bad seal if you don't have to...

 

[Jwrussell]

What's ambient temp and humidity outside the Cab?

The fact that the beads have been clear for so long is indeed strange. I would expect that they would be releasing moisture and starting to turn opaque. Two weeks with no change in the beads would typically tell me that either you are at the correct RH or over humidified, not under...

 

[MichiganM]

What's ambient temp and humidity outside the Cab?

The fact that the beads have been clear for so long is indeed strange. I would expect that they would be releasing moisture and starting to turn opaque. Two weeks with no change in the beads would typically tell me that either you are at the correct RH or over humidified, not under...

Ambient temp is around 68 degrees. RH outside the cab is around 32 percent. I'm not sure on this one, I've never ran into this situation before. I'll buy some stuff at Home Depot and re-do the seal myself and adjust the Euro style hinges the best I can. 58% RH isn't horrible, I just prefer around mid 60's..taste better to me that way.

 

[earnold25]

don't wanna scare ya, but i've had some "broken" beads as well. I had a tube that just simply quit releasing water / humidity. I tried everything from a hair drier, a stove, to leaving them outside for a day. Nothing. I had to chuck em.

Hope this didn't happen to you. (and no I didn't use tap water )

 

[Jwrussell]

OK, stranger and stranger. Jason, why not send it back to Cheaper and have them replace it under the lifetime warranty? Also, it seems strange that it would be a seal issue considering the outside RH. If the seals gone bad and is causing this problem I would assume you would be seeing a steadily dropping RH and most definitely your beads drying out. Is the RH stead at 58% throughout the cab? Front to back, top to bottom?

I don't blame you with this, I'd be freaking out myself. Anything below 60% gets me all jittery and I much prefer to be around 65-68%.

 

[Jwrussell]

don't wanna scare ya, but i've had some "broken" beads as well. I had a tube that just simply quit releasing water / humidity. I tried everything from a hair drier, a stove, to leaving them outside for a day. Nothing. I had to chuck em.

Hope this didn't happen to you. (and no I didn't use tap water )

Huh. First time I've heard of that. Strange!

 

[MichiganM]

OK, stranger and stranger. Jason, why not send it back to Cheaper and have them replace it under the lifetime warranty? Also, it seems strange that it would be a seal issue considering the outside RH. If the seals gone bad and is causing this problem I would assume you would be seeing a steadily dropping RH and most definitely your beads drying out. Is the RH stead at 58% throughout the cab? Front to back, top to bottom?

I don't blame you with this, I'd be freaking out myself. Anything below 60% gets me all jittery and I much prefer to be around 65-68%.

Yeah, Jason...I'm thinking the same as you. If it's a RH loss issue then it's a constant issue, I'm losing RH constantly and struggling to keep beads humidified. But yes, I have three hygros..one on bottom, one on the middle shelf, and one in the drawer. Something doesn't seem right here and I'm going to get to the bottom of it. I let it go for a couple weeks now thinking something would straighten out, but it hasn't. The shipping back to GA is extremely expensive...so I'm not sure about the idea of sending it back. We'll see what happens here. I'll keep ya posted.

 

[indyrob]

How about a low-tech squeeze on the cigars? I am not overly reliant on the hygros and keep them going just for shits and giggles, but I do adjust the humidity with more/less beads based on feel. I like mine about 62% (rough guess) and like less spring to my sticks and I'll take about 1/4lbs. of beads out to get what I want based on a squeeze.

I have moved mine into a closet sized room and run a little evaporative humidifier in there to help equalize the inside/outside humidity. Temperatures are an even 60 year round in that room even with the steam from the little humidifier.