Dryzone Moisture Meter Detector – Damp Meter for Wood, Masonry and Other Building Materials

Product Information

But be careful here, the values showing on a reference scale do not represent the moisture content of the material under test. Instead, these are just estimates where high values mean high moisture levels and low values mean low moisture levels. An all-in-one device might be used as a simpler alternative to switching between a pin and pinless device and is ideal for any of the surfaces which either a pin or pinless device are. Pros As a result, we will tighten the perimeter a little bid and talk only about lumber, which is the type of wood most used for building houses and making furniture. The top layers can be bone dry and show how values on the moisture meters but since concrete dries from the top to the bottom, deeper layers can be saturated yet still not detected by the instrument. This device is simple to operate and features various display icons that show the levels of moisture present inside the tested surface. Its tech features include an audible alert and a data freeze application. It comes with a small display.

Our step by step approach to using a moisture meter is broken down based on type but these exact steps may need to vary depending on the device in question and which material is being tested. We will discuss these types of moisture meters in more detail in the next section. Using a Pin Moisture Meter This pin-type moisture meter is one of the most popular out there. It comes in an ergonomic size. This meter is a high-quality moisture meter for wood, and it is good for testing moisture in any uneven surfaces. In terms of design features, it’s a pin-type meter that weighs 227g and its dimensions are 14.1 x 24.1 x 3.6 cm. This product is a low-cost pin-type meter with a wide and accurate measuring range. It is good for making fast moisture measurements of wood materials. It is small and particularly lightweight.This product is another pinless moisture meter. It has a great measuring range and an intelligent shut-off feature. Other benefits include its high levels of accuracy. This product is ideal for measuring delicate surfaces since it is pinless. It is small and relatively lightweight. Repeat this process several times on other areas of the surface. This will maximise the accuracy of your measurements by taking multiple readings and allowing you to find the average. This is best done on wood surfaces. You cannot use any type of electronic moisture meter to get a quantitative measure of the amount of moisture in masonry or plaster. This is for another video, but there are articles which we’ve written on this subject, if you’d like to explore these? There is a great guide on our Technical Director’s preservationexpert blog, which will help you differentiate between the different ways of measuring moisture in masonry, using electronic damp meters, Chemical moisture meters (speedy type), and the gravimetric method too. This device is particularly good for measuring moisture levels in wood, but it is also a superior concrete moisture meter. It is small, ergonomic and lightweight at just 141g. It has a large LCD display that’s easy to read. Its measuring range for wood is 2% to 70%. It is powered by three AAA batteries which come with the device. Pros

Its intelligent shut-off feature causes the device to turn off following five minutes without any activity. Other tech features include its 10 varying timber density grades and its calibration indication. This product comes with a large HD LCD screen. This professional standard instrument comes pre-calibrated from the factory for accuracy and ease of use. It has both a ‘Wood’ mode and ‘Building’ mode for identifying the moisture content of a wide variety of materials. This means that when we were talking about the normal readings for drywall, we assumed that your moisture meter was calibrated for drywall and had a specific reading scale for drywall. The same goes for wood, concrete, and plaster.

Normal moisture meter reading on drywall

For a drywall, an ideal moisture reading is between 5% and 12%. If it goes above 17% then the drywall may need to be replaced as this is a sign that it has experienced water damage. Repeat this process several times by measuring different areas of the same surface. Find the average reading from all of the measurements undertaken. This moisture meter has audible alerts which change their frequency as you go across higher concentrations of moisture. It also comes with varying modes. Unlike most moisture meters, this device has an LED screen. The baseline value can also be considered as a goal to achieve as you begin to dry out the infected surfaces.

However, if you want to use a moisture meter as an aid to diagnosis of damp in masonry or plaster, remember that it is not calibrated for that material. It cannot be so because the wide variety of densities and materials is just too vast. Natural materials like stone can vary within a wall too. A wall is made up of the mortar, the masonry units and the plaster. Any profiling must be done in each separately; never mixed. You cannot compare qualitative readings from different materials. You must not rely on the meter to take quantitative readings. The numbers, colours or sounds refer to ‘relative’ amounts now. You can tell where moisture is present and how much more damp or, much less damp parts of a wall are. The readings are now qualitative. This is important! It is also very useful to a surveyor. In general, a reference scale goes from 0 to 100, where 0 is bone dry and 100 is saturated. But there are other moisture meters that have reference scales ranging from 0 to 300.

This device is one of the best wood moisture meters on the market. It is low-cost and offers a measuring range of up to 0% to 99.9%. It has four modes designed to test on four different types of wood groups, which comprise about 50 wood species in total. A pin moisture meter uses pins instead of a pad (that a pinless meter uses). Other differences between these two types include that a pin meter can leave holes in the surface it is measuring, pin meters also require different setting adjustments than a pinless device and pin moisture meters also work slower than pinless meters. On top of that, concrete can be mixed differently and as a result, have different densities and physical properties. This affects the moisture-holding capacity of the slab and what MC% is considered safe and acceptable. because there are many types of wood with different structures and textures and therefore different moisture-holding capacities.

In this section, we will explain how to use a moisture meter. We will break down the various steps involved in using one. How you should use a moisture meter will vary depending on what type of surface you’re trying to measure the moisture from and what type of moisture meter you are using.Second, because it also has many applications and can be used for different purposes with different humidity tolerances. Generally speaking, moisture meters that are calibrated for wood offer a reading scale ranging from 6% to 40%. Does it mean that wood can not hold more moisture than 40%? No. As said earlier, wood has a great water-holding capacity and can have way more than 40% moisture content. Freshly cut wood, for example, can hold between 40% to 200% of damp in it. Quite impressive isn’t it? How to use a moisture meter. Some of our electronic moisture meters being benchmarked in our damp diagnosis lab This is another popular wood moisture meter. It offers a wide and accurate measuring range of 5% to 50% for wood. It is lightweight and durable. It also only requires a single 9-volt battery although the battery does not come with the product.