Does a humidor go bad?

dontscuffmyjs

About 10 years ago, I bought a humidor. I got lazy and never recharged it and actually lost interested. I have a renewed interested and I am curious if there is a way to recharge the humidor or should I just start over and buy a new one. Any help is much appreciated

matkn293

Welcome. I would just try and recharge it with some distilled water in a cup for a few days and see if it will hold humidity. Don't believe there should be a problem unless the seal is completely gone.

edelrionyc

I agree with Matkn293. Try recharging it with distilled water in a cup. I would most likely do this for two weeks since it has been dried for so long. Open it up once a week to add more distilled. As long as the seal isn't cracked or completely destroyed you should be fine.

Ken Light

I think it would take several decades for the wood to lose its ability to absorb water, that's probably not the problem. However, as it dried out it could definitely have warped, so the seals would be more important. Do the light and/or dollar bill test (easily found on Google) for the seal and then try to re-season, I think if it passes the test(s) re-seasoning will be fine though.

bigharpoon

No harm in giving it a chance to come back to life. Depending where you live it may have been fairly saturated from the ambient air all this time anyway.

youngryan216

I gave a small 50 count I let fall into disrepair after college. I left it in my parents' garage for a few years, but when I opened it up, It still smelled great albeit sort of dry.

A quick, light, rubdown with distilled and a Boveda 75 had me sitting at 69% in 3 days. Boveda is the way to go in these dry winter months fa sho.

Bob Luken

Are the terms re-season and re-charge interchangeable? I did not think they were.

I've always heard it this way, you don't re-charge a humidor, you re-season it.

You re-charge a humidifier. The humidifier is the device inside the humidor that helps maintain humidity.

Right?

Just like hydrometer and hygrometer are not the same instruments.

Right?

Cigary

Humidors don't go bad unless they warp...re-seasoning is easy where you can do it passively or active. I just get a sponge and dip it into DW and squeeze it out...run it around the inside where you can see the moistness and then keep it open for 24 hours...then put your hygro inside of it and close it up and check where your RH is. Once it is in the acceptable range ( 62 - 70% ) you're good to go. Ensure that when using this way of seasoning that you don't use too much DW...just a light touch is how it's done.