Static Shock?

I'm not sure keeping the window open is such a good idea, as you're just letting cold dry air in, and letting warm moist air out. The furnace doesn't take any moisture out of the air. What happens is the relative humidity drops when you heat air up. This means the air feels drier because it can absorb more moisture when it is warm. With the window shut, the humidifier and your breathing will fill up the air's excess absorbtion capacity, and increase the absolute and relative humidity. By opening the window, the moisture from the humidifier and your lungs will leave the room. The cold air outside may have a high relative humidity, but it has a lower absolute humidity on a per volume basis than the air you are letting out of your room.

Static electricity in a fireworks factory - now THAT'S a serious problem!!!!

I live in So. Cal. & in the fall when the Santa Ana winds kick up the humidity drops down to single digits. This can create some serious finger arcing. For some reason during this condition when I touch my Krell KRC2 pre it will send it in to "mute/standby" mode. I will have to reselect an input, then take it off of mute. I have gotten into the habit of touching the rack first almost every time. The humidifier sounds good, but I wouldn't want to introduce any type of corrosion enhancer to the equipment. I just need to ground myself out. Wood doesn't conduct electricity so it must always be metal in my house.
Fireworks factory, where is the smoking section..?
-John

Simply touching the rack first works in my system. I also remember reading somewhere that someone had a bare copper wire hooked to their rack and they slid the wire through their hand before touching the system.

As suggested earlier, a humidifier will provide significant improvement. A whole house humidifier connected into your HVAC system will help the humidity and make your home feel more comfortable.

Enjoy,

TIC

Ground the rack and be sure to make contact with the pillars/ground,before contacting components.

Jsd52756,

Whole house humidifiers are typically installed to work with the heating side of HVAC. However, Santa Anas certainly have the ability to "dehydrate" the atmosphere, but at the same time, one would not usually be turning on the heat during such an event. In this case, perhaps a portable cool mist humidifier in your listening area would suffice.

Since we are talking about humidifiers, perhaps a brief discussion of the concept of RELATIVE humidity is in order: In simple terms, 100% relative humidity is the condition whereby the atmosphere is completely saturated for a given temperature. Any further increase in moisture results in precipitation of some form. Said a different way.....as the temperature rises, so does the atmosphere's ability to contain higher amounts of moisture; and conversely, as the temperature falls, so falls the atmosphere's ability to hold as much moisture. Hence the term, "RELATIVE humidity", because the value is relative to a given temperature.

BUT, at the typical temperatures we are comfortable keeping the inside of our homes, RELATIVE humidity at a level of 40 to 50% (optimum) should pose no danger of promoting corrosion. This level of moisture is not high, it simply is not arid. It is a level of moisture which averts static discharge, and is healthier for our upper respitory systems, without approaching humidity levels which would promote corrosion or the formation of molds and mildews. Moreover, it is the typical target humidity level for a whole house humidification system.

The bottom line is, add the humidifier, keep your doors and windows closed, and enjoy the cessation of sparks, feel more comfortable, and reside in an atmosphere which is more conducive to good health.

Hope this helps.

GW