Basement rock station questions

add a small electric heater, the kind with a fan?

 

You can get free pallets from businesses that get a lot of incoming palletized shipping if you ask around. You could set your gear up on those so that if you get any flooding it doesn’t cause immediate disaster.

As for temperature, I suspect that you’ll mind those lows before your gear does. Portable heaters are inexpensive. And a wall-mounted hygrometer wouldn’t cost much.

 

Our basement is maybe a tad warmer, but not much. I think a consistent temperature is more important than being warm. Sudden changes are what cause damage or issues. I just turn on a decent space heater when I play!

 

You are fine at 45 degrees for amps. Humidity is a worse issue... mostly just to the extent that you may have scratchy pots until things warm up well. Mine are out in unheated space in winter.
Guitars keep in the living area.

 

Guitars and amps are most comfortable in the same conditions that most humans find comfortable.

Excessive humidity not only corrodes transformers and causes tracking in circuits, it softens the covering glue on older amps, and the covering peels off. Excessive humidity also softens paper in speaker cones and can loosen the adhesives in vintage speakers. This is why many amps stored in damp basements commonly blow their speakers.

 

I usually dont worry about humidity except with my acoustics.
but that is me.

 

I don’t store anything I care about in a basement.

Capgun

 

Dehumidifier, stable temperature, hygrometer, get stuff off the floor as been said.

 

You need a rug on the floor - carpeting doesn't do too much for the room environment, but it makes everything feel better.

 

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You will want sound traps on the walls or you'll blast your ears out.

Could be hanging up those thick moving blankets, or constructing 1x4 frames to fit 'shredded jeans' insulation bats with 'burlap' over them. Some spend big money on the egg-crate foam but the DIY boxes do better on tests.

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First of all, very cool set up!

When wood and electronics experience temperature change, you can get condensation, the wood can expand and conrtract faster than the wood thus, leading to cracks in the finish.

I'd seriously get some heat down there.
Try to bring it up to at least 60f.

Convection Eletric heat does a great job using far less electricity than the fan forced models.

 

Maybe if you leave the amps on 24/7 it will warm up a couple of degrees by late spring?

Yeah, I have one of those low profile electric heaters in a cold basement room, just to "take the edge off"
Bonus- dead silent operation.

 

Agree on a little heat. Once you start firing things up and they get warm you could run into some internal condensation issues. Just to be safe. Not sure I'd leave any guitars down there. I would look into something that uses radiant heat as opposed to a fan. Radiant heat will actually heat the objects, much like the sun, as opposed to the air. It is more efficient and less drafty. Only my two cents, so I won't tell anyone here they're wrong. I've seen gear in some horrific environments that appear to perform fine. I just wouldn't feel totally right doing it if it was my stuff.

 

Looks great! Bet you don't need to use any reverb.