Overflow Tub Rh spike

I set up a 20 qt airtight tub as temporary storage with a Humi-care hx10 (yes it blew apart when i filled it, I dried it out enough to re stuff and duct taped it back together) anyway every time I sealed the lid the Rh will start to climb and after about 6 to 8 hrs. will hit 80, I unlatched one side of the top and stuck a match stick in and it drops back to about 72 - 73, I thought these were supposed to keep 70 Rh? By the way I filled it with distilled water. does anyone know why this would happen? I ended up tapeing off 3/4 of the screen to try to regulate it and it still varies from 68 to 72Rh Is there not any consistency to these unit's? is this something normal with the gel's?

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thedjfish@comcast.net

whats your ambient temp where the tub is located?

onestrangeone

72 to 75 sitting on a tile floor.

Bob Luken

onestrangeone:
I set up a 20 qt airtight tub as temporary storage with a Humi-care hx10 (yes it blew apart when i filled it, I dried it out enough to re stuff and duct taped it back together) anyway every time I sealed the lid the Rh will start to climb and after about 6 to 8 hrs. will hit 80, I unlatched one side of the top and stuck a match stick in and it drops back to about 72 - 73, I thought these were supposed to keep 70 Rh? By the way I filled it with distilled water. does anyone know why this would happen? I ended up tapeing off 3/4 of the screen to try to regulate it and it still varies from 68 to 72Rh Is there not any consistency to these unit's? is this something normal with the gel's?

I assume you are using a digital hygrometer that has been calibrated. (salt test)? I also blew up a humicare just like yours. My theory is that these little gel balls aren't intended to swell up this big. They may be trying to purge excess moisture and therefore the higher than average RH. Do you have cigars in there now? If yes, They might be able to regulate themselves for a while without any help from humidifier. If that doesn't work. Try measuring the RH in the room and if it is lower than your target RH you could leave the lid open for a while and let the RH inside the container drop down more, close the lid and keep the humicare out of there for a while. If the RH in the room is higher than your target RH. You might try some uncooked rice inside the container to absorb excess moisture. Either way keep the humicare out of there for now. And there's always silica Kitty Litter crystals if you can get to a petsmart or walmart. Ask me about brand selection if you want to try kitty litter.

Rain

In Austin? And we have not met?

blurr

For tupperdors or a cooler humidor, you really need a good 2 way humidification media such as silica beadslitter pearls or boveda. I'm guessing the gels are good at giving off humidity but very poor at absorbing it, I believe I've heard this stated somewhere. Like bob said your room humidity is also possibly above 70rh so its struggling to lower the humidity. Just take it out for a few days and see if just the cigars being in there alone settles at 65 to 68rh. In that time maybe the gel will dry out some, or you will have some silica from wallyworld etc.

onestrangeone

I do have several digitals calibrated with one of the calibration "Kits" I was getting mixed results from the salt test I also check them against each other. I am interested in more info on the silica for my smaller Humi's 100 & 150 I have gone electric with the big boys "La Veil" The tubs are temporary my collection seems to grow faster than I can make new humidors.

onestrangeone

Maybe we will run across each other sometime, I do make it to Georgetown a couple of time a month. I am staying in north central Austin

Bob Luken

onestrangeone:
I do have several digitals calibrated with one of the calibration "Kits" I was getting mixed results from the salt test I also check them against each other. I am interested in more info on the silica for my smaller Humi's 100 & 150 I have gone electric with the big boys "La Veil" The tubs are temporary my collection seems to grow faster than I can make new humidors.

Read these threads and search for all the other Kitty Litter (KL) or Cat Litter threads on this forum. Plus there's lots of info elsewhere on the net.
http://www.cigar.com/cs/forums/1/616566/ShowThread.aspx

http://www.cigar.com/cs/forums/thread/660564.aspx

Here's my two cents on it. Make certain it's 100% silica cat litter and that it is unscented. If you're not sure spritz a little water on it and sniff again. (I've been fooled before.) For a 100 - 150 count that is already in use (seasoned), I would put about a cup each of KL into two or three separate panty hose stockings. Make them into a loose bag, not a tight ball, tie a knot in the end, place them around in your humi, remove all other humidification unless you have any Bovedas in your desired humidity, and monitor it. If the KL seems dusty, set the bag on a flat plastic lid from a cottage cheese tub or something to catch the grainy dust particles. (Some litter is dustier that others.) Don't spritz it with distilled water first. Wait at least 12 hours and monitor the RH to see if you need more moisture before you spray it. You might have to spritz it (a little) with distilled water and you might not. I've tested ExqisiCat brand's RH in the container it comes in and it's already at 60% so don't get KL too wet too early. It's easier to add moisture than to subtract but hey! You'll probably have a big ass bag of kitty litter leftover. Just start over with dry KL again if you need to. Keep your naked sticks off of it, cello'ed sticks can touch it ok, but don't bury the KL under the cigars. You want the KL to be exposed to the air inside the humi. EDIT: EDIT: EDIT: EDIT: EDIT: EDIT: Maybe 2 to 3 cups would be a little more than necessary. Not sure what the exact amounts should be. I've just been winging it on the amounts. Generally though, "more is better". Heartfeltindustries.com has a chart to determine amounts for their product. http://heartfeltindustries.com/calculator.asp If you desire to have an exact amount, use their chart to determine your needs based on volume,............and then double it. Yep, that's what I'd do if I didn't feel comfortable just guessing. Maybe some day I'll yank all my Kitty litter out and measure what I'm using. But not right now. Right now I'm fixin' ta' smoke one nice cigar,.........or two.

blurr

Bob speaks the truth. Litter will get you set within a weak, and once you learn how it handles your humi setup, its no mess consistent all month.

onestrangeone

What kind of containers are you using? a bowl, sock, pantyhose? it seems that this would take up a lot of space. I assume that the more surface area that is exposed the better it is. If I took the rack that holds the humidifier and lined lined it with window screen would that work?

Bob Luken

onestrangeone:
What kind of containers are you using? a bowl, sock, pantyhose? it seems that this would take up a lot of space. I assume that the more surface area that is exposed the better it is. If I took the rack that holds the humidifier and lined lined it with window screen would that work?

My method is to use pantyhose to contain the crystals. Then I set the pantyhose on an upside down lid from a food container or any shallow plastic tray in order to catch any fine silica dust particles that fall down through the pantyhose. I'll then set the lid or tray right on top of the cigars. Also I've heard of guys using empty tubos with holes drilled or poked in them to hold the crystals, or sections of pvc pipe capped and drilled with lots of holes.

It does take up more room. Generally you use more volume of space inside your humidor for kitty litter than the volume of space that traditional humidifiers would take up. The tradeoff is that it is very, very stable and much less maintenance. Look up Heartfelt Industries http://heartfeltindustries.com/categories.asp?cat=Humidity+Beads . Silica Kitty litter is made of the exact same thing but at a fraction of the cost.

Yes, you are correct to expose as much of the KL to the air inside your humidor as possible. Yes, you can put the kitty litter where your old humidifier went. In fact that's a real good idea however, experiment with the crystals beforehand to test how dusty they will be. You probably don't want to shower your sticks with minute particles of silica dust.

I haven't been using KL that long myself but I have studied how everybody else does it and I have it working for me now and I'm lovin' it. Everybody has different ideas and the fun part is making your own ideas work. Please ask me (or any of the other guys here that use it) any other questions you might have. We'll be glad to answer. And let us know if you come up with any more good ideas too. I definitely want to hear about those.

Lee.mcglynn

Boveda for me no problems here at all!!

Bob Luken

Lee.mcglynn:
Boveda for me no problems here at all!!

Bovedas! Yeah Baby! I love Bovedas. I even used bovedas to train the Kitty litter to keep 65% RH in my cooler. But now all my bovedas are laid off from work. They are all in a ziploc bag waiting to be called back into service while the kitty litter does thier old job for less money.

Lee.mcglynn

Bob Luken:
Lee.mcglynn:
Boveda for me no problems here at all!!
Bovedas! Yeah Baby! I love Bovedas. I even used bovedas to train the Kitty litter to keep 65% RH in my cooler. But now all my bovedas are laid off from work. They are all in a ziploc bag waiting to be called back into service while the kitty litter does thier old job for less money.

recently I've been using a great method of 62&65 bovedas along with gel. So far the rh is perfect at 65&67 and they have lasted over a year so cost is very low. I'm happy and don't think I really need to change it

Bob Luken

Lee.mcglynn:
Bob Luken:
Lee.mcglynn:
Boveda for me no problems here at all!!
Bovedas! Yeah Baby! I love Bovedas. I even used bovedas to train the Kitty litter to keep 65% RH in my cooler. But now all my bovedas are laid off from work. They are all in a ziploc bag waiting to be called back into service while the kitty litter does thier old job for less money.
recently I've been using a great method of 62&65 bovedas along with gel. So far the rh is perfect at 65&67 and they have lasted over a year so cost is very low. I'm happy and don't think I really need to change it

I heard about that too. That's a really cool method. The gel keeps the bovedas charged so they last forever. and the bovedas do the work of regulating the RH precicely. It's a great tag team, and hassle free. If I was going away for six months I'd do it just like that.

P.S. In my previous post, I didn't mean to disrespect Bovedas. I actually have MUCH respect for them. I give my local newbie friends cigars in a quart ziploc with a 65% Boveda. I tell 'em that's all they really need.

Rhamlin

I used those for the last couple years. I don't recommend them for coolers or Tupperware since all they do is release the humidity and you can get drastic spikes. Also I think they put too many of the balls in them sometimes. They were supposed to have this problem fixed but it seems to have started up again. What I did was I let them swell up then put the balls back in till it was full which left me enough to fill another empty one, so I ended up with 2.

Cigary

Yes indeed...KL works best for me and it's almost a no brainer to set up. If you can put KL into a shallow container and spritz the top of the litter a few times...wait a few hours and check the RH to see where it is then you can be a fan as well. Usually when you put KL into a container and leave it for about 6 hours it will be around 58 to 62 RH. A few sprays and check again in a few hours should have you around 64 to 66%. I have a bunch of the rectangular hygros that I took the foam out and replaced with KL and they work perfect as most of the KL gets sprayed and that's what you want...as much surface area exposed to capture the spray.