Quote:
Originally Posted by Donald
the temps vary from the high 50's at night to the mid 70's during the day. I even have two Vandas but because of the low humidity level I have not been able to get them to bloom
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[ off topic ]
Donald, I'm gonna venture to say that the Vandas most definitely need more warmth than that. If, all summer long, you can give them temp's 15-20 deg's higher than what you describe (along with a lot of food and very strong light), you should have spikes by September.
[/ now returning to your regularly scheduled topic ]
On the subject of humidity:
You know, everyboy likes it warm indoors during the winter. When I lived in a place with electric baseboard heat, which everyone knows is extremely de-humidifying, I did something different so that I could leave the baseboards off as much as possible.
(There's another reason I did this, but the effect it has on the humidity level is dramatic)
I would put 2 soup-stock or lobster-pot sized pots of water on the stove, bring them to a boil, then carry them into the room I wanted to heat. Put them on the floor with a towel or a phonebook underneath to protect the floor. Closed the doors. Lids off the pots for warming the room quickly, lids on for longer warming.
You can imagine, especially with the lids off, this humidified the room while warming it. If the humidity became too much, and I still wanted faster warming, a small fan blowing past the lidded hot pots would help.
Five gallons of boiling water radiates as much sheer heat as a good old cast-iron hot-water radiator does, though more slowly. I did this because I was young, broke and hungry, and I paid for my electricity but not my gas in that apartment. By using the gas stove to heat water this way, and avoiding using the electric baseboards, I survived a Portland, Maine winter without losing any fingers to frostbite or losing too many pounds to starvation.
Anyway, with the lids off, it's also a very effective way to add loads of humidity to a room (and non-drying warmth at the same time, which many orchids need), and it lasts for hours. When the steam coming off the surface of the water starts to peter out, the water actually is still hot enough that you can bring it back to the boil in just about no time at all, using next to no energy.
I haven't measured the lift, because I wasn't into orchids back then, and today I have enough humidity that I don't do this for orchids, but I'm going to estimate that in the dead of coastal Maine winter, this technique would bring a 45-degree, 30%-humidity, 10x12x9ft room up to 60 degrees, 65% humidity in an hour. After a couple more hours, with 1 or 2 trips back to the stovetop for re-boiling, and with lids off and fan on the whole time, the room eventually would get to close to 70 degrees and 90% humidity. Just in time for bed.
) I do have some waterfilled boxes standing on the radiator but I think my curtains are so heavy they absorb everything :P. Your solution with the wet towels does look good, I am going to give that a try and see if it makes a difference here. My plant table does stand close to the radiator to catch the late afternoon sun from the big window and to get the morning sun from the balcony door window 
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