How to protect humidors from winter dry ??

[RobR1205]

I'm currently living in CT and keeping my desktop humidor in a desk draw or clothing closet really helps keeps my humidor from leaking in the extreme low humidity...I check my cigars periodically and so far, I've been at a constant 70% all winter long!

[BlindedByScience]

I used to put a shot glass of distilled water in my desktop along with the socks of beads when the forced air heat kicked on for the year. My coolers sealed so well (and I got into them far less frequently) that no additional steps were required there beyond the beads.

My Staebell cabinet has active humidification, which is the bomb. I do have to add distilled water slightly more often with the heat on, but it maintains the RH very accurately. I still have my sacks of beads in the cabinet as a little "ballast" for the RH.

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[markem]

Since it hasn't been addressed in quite this way, I'll jump in.

It appears to me that you are in the situation where the ambient RH in your house fluctuates, probably based on time of year. That you would have a problem holding RH inside your storage when the ambient RH is so low should not be surprising. You notice this because the ambient RH isn't consistent enough for you to use only a single approach to how you maintain the RH inside your storage year round.

First, realize that almost no cigar storage container will have a perfect seal. I recall taking a class in college called "The Viscosity of Solids" which hurt my head but hammered home the impracticality of trying to perfect seals except where it was necessary to sustain life. Second, since some exchange will occur between the ambient environment and the storage environment, one can expect to see a larger change to occur, in this situation, when the differential gradient is steep, such as you describe.

Adding more beads or kitty litter or what-have-you may be a perfectly reasonable solution that gets you past the dry times (I am assuming that your beads are quite dry right now). However, you can also run a small experiment for almost no money. Get a small, nonporous container and clean it thoroughly with hot, soapy, distilled water. Rinse it completely with distilled water. Put some distilled water in to the container and put it in to your storage. This is, in effect, supplementing your passive humidification (beads) with a simple form of active humidification. The beads will let you know when you can remove the water container.

I used to do that for my coolers in the winter. Saved me loads on beads.

An alternate is to have a spray bottle of distilled water that you use to mist the inside lid of the storage on occasion. Don't mist the boxes or sticks. Much more work, but same concept and doesn't take any space.