Wood Moisture Meters: The Simple Way to Avoid Callbacks
Checking Moisture Conditions for Hardwood Floor Installations
When installing hardwood floors, a wood moisture meter such as the TechScan Needle-Free Meter can be used to check the moisture content (%MC) of the wood prior to installation. Pinless gauges are an especially good tool for checking the %MC of hardwood floors because they can take measurements in these materials without leaving unsightly pinholes in them.
With a pinless meter, you simply press the scan plate onto the sample material, take a read, and repeat the process until you get enough readings from different samples of hardwood flooring to ensure the %MC is correctly installed on the range.
check the subfloor
In addition to simply checking the moisture content of the hardwood floor you are installing, it is also necessary to check the subfloor moisture content of the subfloor your hardwood floor is installed on.
Why? Because, even if your top floor's %MC is good, building over a wet subfloor can still cause problems because excess moisture from one material will seep into the other.
For subfloors, the type of meter you use will vary depending on the type of subfloor you have. For wood subfloors, both pinless and pinless hygrometers are useful. The pinless gauge is great for quickly assessing large subfloor areas, while the pin gauge helps you pinpoint the depth of moisture pockets. In fact, many contractors use both types of gauges when inspecting lumber.
Acclimatize Sure Wood
When preparing to install wood floors, it is important to ensure that the wood material you are working with is properly acclimated. Different regions of the United States have different ambient humidity levels, which in turn means that wood materials will reach their equilibrium moisture content (EMC) at different %MC by region.
Even in the same area, different buildings may have different humidity conditions due to the building's owners operating their HVAC systems in different environments. Therefore, it is important to acclimatize the wooden floors inside the building in the days before installation.
To check that your wood floor has reached the EMC of its building conditions, check the wood's %MC daily with a moisture meter for a few days. When the moisture readings no longer fluctuate from one day to the next, your wood has reached its EMC environment and is ready for installation.
While accommodating wood, it is important to ensure that the HVAC system is running and using the settings that will be used for the day-to-day operation of the building once completed. In this way, you can ensure that the wood is not exposed to a significantly different climate after installation, as it absorbs or bleeds moisture to equilibrate with its surroundings, which could cause expansion or contraction.
Before installing hardwood floors, by using a moisture meter to check that the wood and subfloor materials are properly conditioned, you can help ensure that you don't have to go through time-consuming and costly callbacks.
