Moisture meters: simple ways to avoid callbacks
Few things can be as exciting, time-consuming and expensive for any flooring contractor as the dreaded callback. When the floor is not properly acclimated to the environment or the concrete subfloor is too wet to build on, many problems can arise, many of which ruin beautiful (not to mention expensive) hardwood floors.
The first two points are fairly obvious, but how can reinstalling your floor cost you other business opportunities? One way is to keep your team from doing other work, causing delays that could result in the client cancelling the job and finding another contractor. Another way callbacks can open you up to other business opportunities is by giving you a bad reputation and causing potential customers to look elsewhere for installation work.
Checking Moisture Conditions for Hardwood Floor Installation
When installing hardwood flooring, using a wood moisture meter such as the TechScan Pinless Meter allows you to check the moisture content (%MC) of the wood prior to installation. Needle-free meters are particularly good tools for checking the %MC of hardwood floors because they can measure in these materials without leaving unsightly pinholes in them.
With a needleless meter, you simply press the scanning plate to the sample material, read and repeat the process until you get enough readings from different samples of hardwood flooring to ensure that the %MC is correctly installed in the range.
Checking the Subfloor
In addition to simply checking the moisture content of the hardwood flooring you are installing, you also need to check the subfloor moisture content of the subfloor your hardwood flooring is installed under.
Why? Because, even if the %MC of your top layer is good, building on a wet subfloor can still cause problems because excess moisture from one material can seep into another.
For subfloors, the type of meter you use will vary depending on the type of subfloor you have. For wood subfloors, both needleless and pinless moisture meters are useful. Needleless meters are great for quickly assessing large areas of subfloor, while needle meters can help you pinpoint the depth of moisture pockets. In fact, many contractors use both types of meters when inspecting wood.
