My staves new home!

[DC]

I think that something that is not mentioned enough is the average RH of the people giving/receiving advice. I can give all sorts of advice and be very honest and sincere about my results but if someone in Arizona follows my methods I think they will be very sorry. Buy two or three hygrometers. I chose three of the same make hoping for similar results. Place them in spots that you think are good and then compare the readings every day or so. Learn what your average and extreme RH is. I'm lucky in that the RH around here sits in the 70% range most of the time but in the winter we get outflow from the interior of BC that will drop to 15-20%. It can play havoc with relatively fresh staves. The average 70% is too humid for good drying so I have a warm box that sits at 40-50%RH. I keep about a dozen staves in that until the weight stabilizes. Anyway, learn your local conditions and don't take advice from people that don't live in similar conditions

[lebhuntfish]

Yo know DC that makes a lot of sense. I've wondered the same thing myself. I'm have an hvac license and we deal with the RH factor all the time. The only true way to read humidity is the use of a device called a sling psychrometer. You take what is called a  wet bulb and dry bulb reading to get humidity levels in a space to properly size an ac unit. That being said my humidity levels run a lot like what you mentioned from really high in summer to really low in winter. I actually had a reading this winter of 12% and last summer a peak of 100% outside. My actual average runs right at 66%. Patrick