Using a Moisture Meter What Should the Drywall Read to Be Ok

Moisture is an unwelcome guest in most houses and closed areas.

When dampness gets into the inner layers of walls, floors, roofs, and decorative items, information technology starts causing structural harm that spreads and worsens progressively until the infected surface becomes completely compromised.

Moisture is also known to be unsafe for people with respiratory problems and cause many wellness hazards.

On top of that, a high humidity level is ordinarily associated with the spread of moisture patches, or worse yet, mold, on walls and surfaces, making them look bad and health-threatening.

Considering of all these risks, many people are very concerned virtually the humidity level in their homes and desire to know whether their walls and furniture contain normal wet content or non. What practice they use for that? Well, ane of the most used tools is a moisture meter.

Moisture meters are highly reliable instruments that measure moisture levels inside substrates and materials and provide accurate readings to within less than 0.1%.

So what is a normal reading on a wet meter? what is an acceptable wet reading for the different types of materials and surfaces? and what are the different readings that nosotros should expect when using a moisture meter?

That's what I decided to write about today. In this article, I desire to share with yous what I have found on the web and other reliable sources nearly normal moisture meter readings and what values require intervention in gild to stop dampness from spreading before it becomes challenging and incurable.

TL;DR
A normal wet meter reading on woods ranges betwixt 6 and 10%. However, for drywall, physical, and masonry substances, the moisture meter should evidence low values, preferably less than ane%.

What does moisture content mean?

Before we begin, allow'due south first clarify what wet content means.

Simply put, moisture content (MC) describes the weight of water in a fabric relative to the weight of that material when bone dry out.

In other words, the formula to calculate the moisture content of something is:

This mode, if the wet content of a 13-pound block of woods is 30%, it simply means that there are iii pounds of water in the block and when the block is dry, it only weighs 10 pounds.

Desire another example?

If a drywall board weighing 100 pounds contains one pound of h2o, then the wet content of the lath is i/99 (~1%)

And then to summarize, measuring the moisture content of an object is simply calculating the amount of water it contains relative to its dry weight.

Normal wet meter reading on woods

Wood will be the most fragile cloth that we are going to talk about in this article. Why? Starting time, because wood has a nifty chapters to absorb and agree h2o. Second, because information technology also has many applications and tin exist used for different purposes with different humidity tolerances. Third, because there are many types of wood with different structures and textures and therefore different moisture-holding capacities.

Then a normal moisture meter reading on wood tin non be given without knowing what type of wood we want to cheque and for what end.

As a outcome, we will tighten the perimeter a little chip and talk only about or lumber which is the type of forest most used for building houses and making furniture.

More often than not speaking, wet meters that are calibrated for wood offering a reading scale ranging from 6% to forty%. Does it mean that wood can not hold more moisture than 40%? No. As said before, forest has a great water-property capacity and can have fashion more than xl% moisture content. Freshly cut wood, for example, can agree between 40% to 200% of damp in it. Quite impressive isn't it?

At present when it comes to processed lumber that we utilize for construction and furniture, a reading scale ranging from half-dozen% to 40% is probably all you need. Why? considering if the moisture meter indicates 40% of water content in lumber, it means that it is already saturated and compromised. No demand for higher values here. The lumber must be cured or replaced.

And so what are normal moisture meter readings for lumber? what values are acceptable in the 6-forty scale?

Well, when testing forest, you should await for an MC beneath 10%.

The lumber used for interiors, residential structure, decorative arts, and piece of furniture is supposed to be dry out and damp free. Therefore you need to stay on the lower end of the calibration. In general, whatsoever reading betwixt half dozen and 10% is considered normal here.

Now if you are testing outside wood that has directly contact with the surrounding humidity, you tin tolerate values that are up to twenty%.

Things start to get worrying when the meter indicates higher values than 20%. Wood is not supposed to exist that clammy and therefore if you encounter such high values, you need to first immediately looking for h2o leaks and other possible wet sources.

Normal moisture meter reading on drywall

Drywall (or gypsum) is not as fragile as wood.

As the name suggests, drywall is meant to exist dry out and damp free. Thus, only low values are considered normal when using a drywall moisture meter. How low? Less than ane% 🙂

Yes, unlike wood, the structure of drywall does not hold every bit much water and therefore any reading in a higher place one% suggests saturation and too much humidity.

Therefore, a normal moisture meter reading for gypsum is betwixt 0.ii% and i%. If you find higher values, then your drywall might already have a high MC that could spread and harm the entire board.

Further checks are therefore necessary to verify whether the drywall can be treated or it needs to be replaced.

Normal wet meter reading on concrete slabs

Physical is tricky as well. Why? Because concrete slabs are quite thick and their depth is generally measured in feet and non in inches. Every bit a upshot, a wet meter, which just evaluates dampness in the acme few inches, can non observe the MC in deeper layers and the readings will not be 100% reliable.

I mean the top layers can be bone dry out and bear witness depression values on the moisture meter, just since concrete dries from the height to the bottom, deeper layers can exist saturated yet nonetheless not detected by the instrument.

A moisture meter is therefore non the ideal tool to evaluate damp in a concrete slab.

On top of that, physical can be mixed differently, and as a result, take different densities and physical properties. This affects the moisture-holding capacity of the slab and what MC% is considered safe and acceptable.

In other words, dense mixes of concrete let less moisture to penetrate the slab than lighter ones.

With that in mind, and similarly to what we said virtually drywall, concrete must remain dry out and damp free. So all nosotros tin can say here is that a normal moisture meter reading for concrete needs to remain low.

In fact, and giving the tight structure of concrete, even a reading of two% MC suggests too much water in concrete.

Normal wet meter reading on masonry

Masonry refers to the building of structures using stones or bricks and a boundary textile such every bit mortar or concrete.

In general, the materials nosotros normally use for masonry are as follow:

• Brick
• Stone
• Concrete
• Stucco
• Tile
• Mortar
• Plaster
• Cement
• Mudbrick
• Granite

As yous can see, masonry can be a mix of many substances and materials. Checking the MC of a masonry work requires, therefore, checking every component with a dedicated moisture meter.

Meaning, in order to see if a masonry structure has prophylactic damp percent, you demand to use a moisture meter for every component that is in the structure, and if only 1 of them shows loftier values, then the whole masonry can exist considered as damp and needs an intervention.

What readings are normal when checking the components of masonry?

Well, tile, bricks, and stones are known to take a depression water-holding capacity and therefore should exist dry.

As a result, the normal wet meter reading for these materials is betwixt 0.v% and 1%. Higher values could hateful a wet or saturated textile.

For boundary materials, the values vary depending on the physical properties of what you are testing. As a rule of pollex, you should expect the following ranges for dry materials:

• Mortar: 1-iv %
• Plaster: 0.5 – 1 %
• Physical: 0.5% – 1%
• Stucco: 0.v% – 2%

At present as we said, in lodge to inspect a masonry edifice, you need a moisture meter for every component in the edifice. That's quite difficult to take. Isn't information technology?

And then what to do if y'all can't find a dedicated wet meter for bricks, mortar, or rock? The solution is to use a reference scale. More on that in the following paragraph 😉

Normale moisture reading on a reference scale?

As nosotros have already mentioned on different occasions, all the values that we have discussed and so far in this article are for dedicated moisture meters.

This means that when we were talking about the normal readings for drywall, we causeless that your moisture meter was calibrated for drywall and had a specific reading calibration for drywall. The aforementioned goes for wood, concrete, and plaster.

The truth all the same is, nigh wet meters just have i reading calibration that only serves 1 material (ordinarily forest).

Equally a consequence, this calibration cannot be used for other materials as it merely won't brand sense.

The solution? we must utilize a reference scale.

A reference calibration is only a mode in which yous tin change your moisture meter to permit information technology to requite you estimates of the moisture content in other materials that practise not accept a dedicated reading scale.

In other words, to check the humidity in drywall using a meter calibrated for wood, y'all must first switch the instrument to the drywall reference scale.

But be careful hither, the values showing on a reference scale do not represent the wet content of the material under test. Instead, these are just estimates where high values mean high moisture levels and low values hateful low moisture levels.

Put differently, if the reference calibration shows a reading of 20%, it does not mean that 20% of the dry weight of the tested material is water. Instead, it just ways that the moisture content of the material represents xx% of the reference scale.

Information technology's simply a qualitative value.

In general, a reference scale goes from 0 to 100 where 0 is os dry and 100 is saturated. Merely there are other moisture meters that take reference scales ranging from 0 to 300.

Ok, what is a normal reading on a reference scale

The best way to know if the values on a reference scale are normal or non is to compare them to a "normal" sample.

For case, we know that "normal" for drywall is dry out. So if you want to use a drywall reference scale, get-go by applying the moisture meter to drywall that you know for certain is dry out. Record the reading you get somewhere and apply it as a baseline.

Now, during your tests and checks, if the values you get are in a higher place the baseline, it probably means there is more moisture than what your sample has.

The baseline value can likewise be considered as a goal to accomplish as y'all begin to dry out the infected surfaces.

With this in mind, don't forget to examination your MC sample multiple times and from dissimilar locations. The humidity percentage changes depending on the surrounding relative humidity. So brand sure to check the baseline regularly and verify if information technology's notwithstanding reliable for your tests and checks.

Summary

Textile	Normal moisture reading
Interior wood and wooden furniture	6-10%
Outside wood	6-20%
Drywall (gypsum)	0.2-1%
Concrete	0.5-i%
Plaster	0.5-1%
Brick	0.v-i%
Stone	0.5-1%
Mortar	1-4%
Stucco	0.5-2%

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Source: https://dampsolving.com/normal-reading-moisture-meter/