desert preservation
- Thread starter jdzara
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Hi Jerry, welcome. None of those products is a great idea. Anything leather should be humidified in a desert or dry cold environment. If you can, keep the location somewhere between 40-50% humidity. I live in Canada and during the winter months when it is freezing I have to humidify my collection. There is an excellent article about this subject on the web site: The Kaisers Bunker. The author explains things much better than I.
yes, as Brian says do not use those treatments on your helmets, you will regret it in the long run.
Humidifier and de-humidifier year round is what I do.
James
Humidifier and de-humidifier year round is what I do.
James
I think you will find that they humidity in your house is high enough to not be a problem, we sometimes have humidity in the 30s, but our house stays between 40 and 50% even when the humidity is a normal 5 to 10%. I realize the Arizona has hotter and dryer conditions, but if you get a humidity meter, I think you will find that you are OK. If you are a bit low, you can always keep a pot of water boiling on the heat stove
If you use a mechanical humidifier, do not put it in the collections room as they can cause spikes in humidity and too much can be worse than too little.
Best
Gsu
If you use a mechanical humidifier, do not put it in the collections room as they can cause spikes in humidity and too much can be worse than too little.Best
Gsu
Peter_Suciu
Well-known member
The humidity debate! This is something that I know both as a collector and as writer. I've actually written about humidifier and de-humidifiers. While not as interesting as writing about helmets, I learned a lot when covering these.
What I would recommend is that a humidifier is used if the humidity falls below 25 percent. On the flip side too much humidity is a problem too and it should be kept below 55 percent if possible. So in some parts of the country it is a balancing act. As Gus noted most houses even in the desert have higher humidity than outside because we breathe off CO2, which contains humidity. It isn't just that the leather could dry out, but mold can grow if there is too much humidity. So the bottomline is to increase the humidity in the winter and decrease in the summer if possible.
My "bunker" also has an air purifier as that can help control dust as well.
Jerry you're in Arizona so I'm going to assume you don't have a basement, but if you do that is the best place for a collection provided it isn't damp. My "bunker" is really a portion of my basement. I've done what I can to ensure there isn't a flood, and I have two dehumidifiers going 8 to 9 months out of the year, and have the air purifier running all year. The temperature is around 65 in the winter and 74 in the summer on average so it is ideal for my guns and helmets. My office, which I keep my leather and sun helmets, is on the ground floor and I try to maintain the humidity as I can. If I'd do it over I'd put all the helmets in the basement but then I'd be working in an empty office - actually I'd probably have filled the room anyway.
I look at it this way. Do what you can and enjoy it. A lot of this stuff has survived this long. The best thing to do honestly is to avoid touching it. The human hands are probably the absolute worst thing for old helmets no matter whether they're steel, pith, cork, leather, etc. Our hands are oily and dirty and touching the helmets is really bad for them!
What I would recommend is that a humidifier is used if the humidity falls below 25 percent. On the flip side too much humidity is a problem too and it should be kept below 55 percent if possible. So in some parts of the country it is a balancing act. As Gus noted most houses even in the desert have higher humidity than outside because we breathe off CO2, which contains humidity. It isn't just that the leather could dry out, but mold can grow if there is too much humidity. So the bottomline is to increase the humidity in the winter and decrease in the summer if possible.
My "bunker" also has an air purifier as that can help control dust as well.
Jerry you're in Arizona so I'm going to assume you don't have a basement, but if you do that is the best place for a collection provided it isn't damp. My "bunker" is really a portion of my basement. I've done what I can to ensure there isn't a flood, and I have two dehumidifiers going 8 to 9 months out of the year, and have the air purifier running all year. The temperature is around 65 in the winter and 74 in the summer on average so it is ideal for my guns and helmets. My office, which I keep my leather and sun helmets, is on the ground floor and I try to maintain the humidity as I can. If I'd do it over I'd put all the helmets in the basement but then I'd be working in an empty office - actually I'd probably have filled the room anyway.
I look at it this way. Do what you can and enjoy it. A lot of this stuff has survived this long. The best thing to do honestly is to avoid touching it. The human hands are probably the absolute worst thing for old helmets no matter whether they're steel, pith, cork, leather, etc. Our hands are oily and dirty and touching the helmets is really bad for them!
When it comes to basements, I have a very strong opinion, I do not like them (my house is built on solid basalt, so no chance for a basement for me). I have seen a lot of artifacts destroyed by water when a pipe or water heater failed. One case involved several hundred tunics dating from the Franko-Prussian War to WWII. In this case, the owner was compensated by insurance, but the insurance company would not pay for dry cleaning of any of the old wool coats, after all you could buy them at the second hand store for less than the cost of dry cleaning. He did have some of the most valuable tunics cleaned on his own. The insurance adjuster was shocked when the value was presented for the lot. I might add that Jeff and AGM were instrumental in the must settlement by providing a bunch of past catalogs to value the loss.
If you store you collection in the basement, be sure that you have a working shut off valve for your water, always shut off the water when you are going to be away from you home for any extended time, and besure to cut the power to the water heater too, or you will be replacing the elements if the water level drops below them while the water is off. A few hours with a broken 3/4 inch water line at 40 lbs. will cover the floor of a large basement, but it will take longer for the water level to reach most items in a collections room. In the case of my friend, they were gone for several weeks, and a very small crack in a pipe filled the basement to 5 feet in depth. Nothing stayed dry.
If you store you collection in the basement, be sure that you have a working shut off valve for your water, always shut off the water when you are going to be away from you home for any extended time, and besure to cut the power to the water heater too, or you will be replacing the elements if the water level drops below them while the water is off. A few hours with a broken 3/4 inch water line at 40 lbs. will cover the floor of a large basement, but it will take longer for the water level to reach most items in a collections room. In the case of my friend, they were gone for several weeks, and a very small crack in a pipe filled the basement to 5 feet in depth. Nothing stayed dry.
Peter_Suciu
Well-known member
Gustaf said:
Ideally I'd like a concrete bunker, but there are always trade offs. I have everything in my "bunker" off the ground and I do agree that water damage from a flood is a concern. The flip side is that a tornado in the Midwest (I'm in Michigan) can take out a house!
Peter_Suciu said:
Yeah, that is a good trade off, as long as you manage the danger of water entering the basement, you should be good to go. We do not have tornadoes, hurricanes, tidal waves or any of the fun stuff, we are more likely to have a pyroclastic flow from a rhyolite eruption in Yellowstone.
poniatowski
Well-known member
We're fortunate in that our basement has a 'walk-out', in other words, our house is built into a hill and there is a door on one side of the basement. This was very lucky indeed because we had a major flood in 2008 (you may have seen a house being washed into the Wisconsin River just 20 miles north of us in the Wisconsin Dells). The ground was so saturated after 18 inches of water in two days that it came up around our basement slab. With the walkout, we had an inch of water and everything dried out after it filtered through our house for two weeks. Also, it was very clean water, which helped a lot too (except we had to kick a couple of kayakers out of the basement one morning as they 'shot the rapids' near a door). A fellow who replaced our drain tiles estimated we had around 5,000 gallons of water per hour coming out of the house... yeah, a lot. Without the walkout, I'd have been moving my entire collection to higher ground and would have lost many uniforms, etc. No problems since then. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I agree with Peter, the basement (well drained) is a good place and I also agree with Gustav that one must turn water and such off before trips.
I also de-humidify when the humidity gets higher. It stays okay in the winter.
Ron
I also de-humidify when the humidity gets higher. It stays okay in the winter.
Ron
poniatowski
Well-known member
Just in case you want to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmJZrnHZFV4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0bVsSWXG-I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This is when an embankment between 'Lake Delton' (man made) and the Wisconsin River washed away. Our entire town of Baraboo also had some severe flooding. It was a week before our roads were clear and bridges repaired enough for us to go into town. One of our neighbors had three feet of silt washed into their house and just left. Anyway, this is what it takes for us to get water in our basement, thirty feet above the flood plain.
Ron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmJZrnHZFV4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0bVsSWXG-I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This is when an embankment between 'Lake Delton' (man made) and the Wisconsin River washed away. Our entire town of Baraboo also had some severe flooding. It was a week before our roads were clear and bridges repaired enough for us to go into town. One of our neighbors had three feet of silt washed into their house and just left. Anyway, this is what it takes for us to get water in our basement, thirty feet above the flood plain.
Ron