Vent: Tried a moisture meter on my last LVP job in Phoenix and it backfired

So I bought this fancy pinless moisture meter last month for a 2,000 square foot LVP install in a new build out in Surprise. The subfloor read fine on my old meter but this new one flagged a concrete slab at 8% moisture. I held up the job for 3 days waiting for the GC to dry it out and it turned out the meter was just reading surface humidity from the air. The slab was fine the whole time. Has anyone else had a moisture meter give you a false alarm like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

eric_knight71mo ago

Oh come on, you honestly think a brand new pinless meter is gonna be the problem? More likely your old meter was just shot and you finally got a real reading that saved you from a callback down the road. 8% is borderline anyway, if the GC couldn't dry it in 3 days they don't know what they're doing.

lindal131mo ago

Exactly. Calibrated or not, 8% is wet for a dry in. GC blew it.

patricia5581mo ago

Hang on though, brand new doesn't always mean calibrated right out of the box. I've seen pinless meters read 2-3% off right from the factory, and if that 8% was actually more like 5-6% the GC would have been totally justified calling it good. Plus three days is plenty for most drying setups if the equipment was sized right.