Just wasted $300 on a moisture meter that lied to me

Had a big glue-down job in a Portland basement last month, used my old Protimeter to check the slab. It read fine, so we went ahead. Two weeks later, the client calls with bubbles everywhere. Turns out the meter was giving false low readings and the slab was way too wet. Had to eat the cost of pulling up 400 square feet of LVT and redoing the prep. Anyone else have a moisture meter they actually trust?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahs823mo ago

My contractor buddy swears by calcium chloride tests for slabs, says meters can be fooled too easily.

jamesmason3mo ago

Hold on, doesn't your buddy see that calcium chloride tests are a total snapshot? They only measure vapor coming out of that one spot for a day or two. @noahs82, what about the rest of the slab or how conditions change next week? A good meter gives you instant readings all over the place so you can actually map the problem. Sure you need to know how to use it, but that's true for any test. Relying on just the old school method might mean you miss the bigger picture.

craig.parker1mo ago

Honestly, I'm with you on this one. I tried the calcium chloride test once and ended up with a little plastic dome that looked like it was sweating more than I was after moving a fridge up three flights of stairs. You really think one spot tells you everything about a slab that might be wetter in the corner by that leaky pipe? I'd rather run a meter around and look stupid in front of a bunch of different spots than trust a single cup of salt crystals. But hey, what do I know, my last floor job I spent an hour drying a spot with a hair dryer before I realized it was just condensation from my own breath.