Problems With The Redford Lite™ Electric Cabinet Humidor
TheWebRecluse
Posts: 33 ✭✭
It's been a while since I visited this forum but I haven't had much luck looking elsewhere for help so I thought I would try back here. I have had an endless amount of trouble with humidors over the years. The more I become passionate about cigars the more I want to keep them over time, age them, even buy more expensive types etc. After a long while of trying small humidors, I decided that I took things seriously enough to really invest in a piece of cigar "furniture" ... so I saved up and purchased the The Redford Lite™ Electric Cabinet Humidor ... after a lot of problems with the shipping delays caused by covid and other issues, it arrived a month ago.
I've had enough experience with humidors to know how to season and setup one ... I followed the same procedures for the Redford. I noticed that at the very bottom of the cabinet is a drawer that has fans on top where you put water - 
https://youtu.be/e5lTxkygWOc?t=270 and in theory the fans blow upwards. I have noticed however that only the lower drawers ever reach the proper humidity level. The two drawers furthest from the bottom never seem to get where they need to get. I have two different hygros in all the drawers (electronic and regular) in order to monitor different areas of the slide out drawers.
I divided everything as well so that the lighter cigars and the darker/medium cigars don't occupy the same space because they need different levels of humidity. I have tried balancing things out as much as possible. I have also put 6 Boveda packs (2 on each level) to no avail. The settings on my humidor are 72% / 66F. I thought about adding a little thing of water to the top drawer but the drawers are slanted and I can't put anything liquid in there or it will spill out.
I am at my wits end and of course, I'm a bit bummed. I finally have a large amount of cigars I want to store and I'm worried I'm going to ruin them all because I can't get the proper levels. The cigars feel ok ... I mean ... some of them feel quite dry and others feel great. The top two drawers never get above 62% humidity though and I'm worried about that. I feel like I need to add one of those Cigar Oasis things to the top/side of the humidor but I just don't want to add another device/maintenance to this. I spent so much money and I kind of thought this cabinet would be the last thing I needed to buy.
Any help would be appreciated.
Comments
So the vendor you bought it from and/or the manufacturer hasn't been able to answer your questions?
Had a lot of problems with the vendor actually. I'm not too interested in communicating with them regarding this product. There are other places that sell it and I have inquired there. They offered nothing helpful about the design or how to improve the system. It's like they just "sell them but know nothing about them". Manufacturer ... I wasn't sure. Prestige Import Group is the only thing I could find. Do they actually design these or do they merely sell them?
I was looking at the Redford last week when I was browsing cabinets. If you bought it from "yourelegantbar" you won't have any luck with him helping you out. He's a one-man operation and is a furniture guy, not a cigar guy.
The reason I ultimately steered away from the Redford where those damn angled shelves at the top. The integrated humidifying system looked cool, though. Sorry to see you're having problems with it.
Is the proud owner and operator of a single Tower cabinet myself, I can tell you that the humidity is going to be lower at the top than it is at the bottom, and that will hold true no matter how good your seal is. It's even true in coolers to a smaller degree.
Piece of advice, 62%, along with its little brothers 60 and 61, is a fantastic humidity at which to keep your collection. I have found that flavors really pop at those humidity levels.
I have a couple of questions for you that might help us get to the bottom of your situation:
In my research when I was looking at them. I only found one vendor who was not helpful and one manufacturer who only responds to wholesale account holders
Towers seem like so much work.. I often pondering getting one to display my cigars but coolers are so damn easy..
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
If the top is never going to be ideal then I will need to swap out what cigars I put close to the top. I have, since posting, taken every cigar that was still in plastic out and also removed any boxes of cigars since I know the wood will absorb more humidity. I am hoping this helps a little bit.
Does your system ever stabilize in RH? Or is it constantly fluctuating?
It is stable.
How much water is your system using monthly?
That is something I need to check. The basin at the bottom doesnt seem to hold that much water. I FEEL like I'm adding water every week.
How often does that automatic system turn on per day, per hour, etc?
It's really quiet and sometimes I don't hear that "turn on" sound at all. It usually stays stable until I open the door which hasn't been often since its been snowing and I haven't been smoking.
How long have you had it seasoned?
When I first got it, I seasoned it for several days. I left it empty for 2 days and then slowly added sticks. Dark first and then light ones. I've had it a about two months now.
What is the door seal situation? Wood on wood? Rubber gasket?
Wood. The way the door closes is odd. You have to lift it up a bit and settle it into these notches. I feel like the seal is great though.
Do you have sticks in it?
I have for a few months now. I can send a pic if you want.
Nah bro. Spent about 10 minutes a month maintaining mine. Dive in!
I really do love having a large humidor to store my sticks in but its almost like there is even more maintenance.
Step one: get those Newports out of there. They smoke better dry anyways.
Step 2, see my questions above.
Oh, one more question for you: where in the country do you live? Low humidity all year or just in winter or what?
Interesting. It doesn't really sound like you have that big of a problem. If the top stays at a pretty constant 62, I'd say count your blessings.
One thing you could do to even it out is to add a couple of computer fans to the inside. Do you have power inside or no? If not, it's a little trickier, but not impossible. They have several varieties that you could use, but I like the brushless models that run quietly and direct a lot of air flow
I think that two of those mounted to the back wall what do the trick. I would Mount one on the left near the back wall pointing up and then one on the right near the door pointing down. That'll push the dryer air down and the wetter air up. It'll also make your unit kick on more often until it reaches the pre-programmed levels, but that's okay.
I would also stick your cigar boxes back in there. That model doesn't look like it's lined with cedar, and the boxes will help your aroma levels. Besides, you're going to want them in there at some point anyways. Whenever you end up putting them in there your Rh levels will fluctuate a little for a few days. Not the end of the world.
If your system stays pretty stable, what is the difference between the top of it and the bottom of it? For example, I have a chest humidor that is 12 in high and fluctuates 8% between the top and the bottom. It's got a lid and a drawer and a glass top and there's lots of ways for humidity to get out, but as long as the humidity is stable it'll be fine.
Welcome back Recluse, sorry to hear you're having problems. I don't know anything about that humidor, but it does look like you have a lot of space in there with fewer cigars which may make things more volatile. The wood shelves and the cigars absorb moisture and prevent rH swings so my advice is to fill that with singles and boxes of cigars.
Good luck.
I was wondering where the rest of his shelves where 🤔. That’s a ton of open space. And anything between 62-70 RH is pretty ideal.
Step one. Take those Acids out unless you want everything in there tasting like potpourri.
Step 2 put everything in a cooler and see if you can stabilize the rh with it empty first.
Step 3. Leave cigars in the cooler...minus the Acids
I'm not going to stand by and let the cooler Mafia run over my man with a tower! 😁
Rusty is right though. Acids and cigarettes and Black and milds do not belong in that humidor. Get yourself an airtight bag, load it up with all of that stuff. Put three Bovedas in it, and then throw it away.
Okay I couldn't resist that one lol.
On to the serious stuff, you said that the humidity throughout is pretty stable. What is the stable humidity on top?
Step one: get those Newports out of there. They smoke better dry anyways.
LOL the Newports are a joke. I keep them in there because my friend used to smoke. The box is empty
The acids are fine. They actually don't smell. The macanudos actually are the most pungent. The entire humidor smells like coffee and bourbon.
I wasn't looking for judgments about what myself or my tribemates smoke. The contents of the humidor aren't what I need advice on. The air circulation is more the issue and its possible that the best advice I receive here is to modify the humidor with additional fans. I'm pretty familiar with making modifications to things and I build my own machines ... I have a few extra fans I can mount in there and use an external power source. Thank you.
From what I can tell no one was judging you for what you smoke. We tend to not do that here. As far as the Acids go even the manufacturer will recommend not storing them with what they call “traditional “ cigars due to “the pungent aroma can be absorbed into other cigars”. Just sayin
No one judging. Most start off with Acids. But that’sa big storage you need to fill with cigars….. or boxes of cigars. But more cigars. Fill it to the brim with Acids but you need to fill.
Then you came to the wrong place brother! LOL
And if all fails, fans,bags,etc... make a cooler-dor. Mine is sitting 59% for about 6 years now!! I found the info right here in this forum category
That's great advice, @flowbee, but this guy just isn't going to follow it. We've been telling him since 2015 that an empty box is a hard to maintain box. He just won't listen to it.
The simple truth is that this guy wants to display his cigars and look at them inside the case more than he wants to store them or age them. That's fine, by the way, but people on this form have been telling him for the last 7 years to fill up the free space inside of his humidor to improve its efficiency. He has yet to do so in 7 years.
This isn't going to be a rerun of 2015 where 600 people made five pages worth of post to try to help him season an empty humidor.
Fill it up, live with the fluctuations, and wait for it to settle down. Then when you get highs and lows, adjust accordingly.
It's really that simple, but he just won't listen to that because he wants to have it look cool more than to have it function. Ideally, he'd like to have both, but he's not willing to sacrifice aesthetics for practicality.
And then he whines about being judged like some third grade school girl. This is just a sad rerun of the 2015 episode of the web recluse. #BullyingVictim #SelfMadeVictim
I mean, I'm all for helping people out. I found this place and started posting because I needed help in the first place. I'm usually not the one to pick on the new guy, either, like some of these other grumpy old guys. But some people are just takers bro, no giving. He has treated this forum like his personal tech support line since 2015. I'm done with this guy. Same problem, same history, same result, 7 years later. I've watched more interesting episodes of Gilligan's Island.
He wants the humidity in his box to be 70% in every single corner with the little doohickey LCD on his box reading 70% also. He wants to use up 5% of the space in his box so he can line up his cigars and stare at them next to his box of Newports, which I would be willing to bet the deed on my house is not an empty box.
What this guy ultimately needs is an acrylic cube that is sealed with silicone that has little Cherry veneer corners so that he can keep all of his stuff perfectly the way he wants it. What he's doing now will never work.
But he's willing to turn this into a five-page 14 month thread or 30 little busy bodies on this forum answer all of his questions to his satisfaction until he throws his hands up in the air and gets the next bigger box.
In 2015, he complained about having to put a silicone seal on his French door opening Titanic of a humidor. 7 years later he builds complex machinery and will add the fans himself. #Goodluck
Either way, I don't have time for it.
I love newbies and I love newbie questions. I love bringing guys into the fold and teaching them what I know about this hobby. The more of us the better. But I'm not some whiners tech support. I gave you my advice, and we all gave you our advice, and you cried that it was an attack, just like last time.
That Remington system is completely turnkey and completely foolproof. That's why I didn't buy it, by the way. I don't want something completely turnkey. I want to customize it myself.
Fill the fuckīng thing up for Christ sake
It's the same advice you got 7 years ago and it still holds true. Until you do it, nothing else matters.
But I'm just a bully, and the guys who told him to get the acids away from the montecristos are all so bullies, and anyone who questions his tribe mates is also a bully.
frank'ssorethumbs
Hah! I wrote the same thing about an hour ago, in only 4 sentences, and somehow I deleted the post and was too lazy to type it out again.
Kudos to Mr. Thumbs, a.k.a. Fastest Thumbs In The West.
Well done, Frank. With proper support and applied training, you will certainly graduate and join the ranks of us grumpy old men. We look forward to your arrival.
You missed it on the vherf last night @peter4jc. A couple of teenage girls were horse playing with a group of kids and ran into my front yard and up the side of my house at about 9pm. I yelled, "get the hell out of my yard," to which @IndustMech replied, "did you just say get off my lawn?" He then gave me my credentials for the curmudgeon club.
This is true
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves lives
It'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
Hey, leave Gilligan's Island out of it, one of my favorite empty-headed shows.
Reminds me of my tech support past where customers would call back and speak to someone else if they didn't get the answer they liked. I hope the OP eventually gets an answer they like.
I can’t believe I missed that on the herf lol.
@CharlieHeis and @RobbyCruz were both there as well
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves lives
It'll be fine once the swelling goes down.