Wood is
the ideal raw material. It's structurally sound, beautiful in
appearance, and a pleasure to work with. Moisture content is the
single most important factor affecting the quality of your wood
products. A wood moisture meter is the sure way to help minimize
moisture problems in lumber production, drying, and in all
phases of furniture manufacturing and woodworking.
. . .
Most Moisture meters are portable electric or electronic devices that
measure the amount of moisture in wood flooring and
subfloors;
some will measure moisture in concrete. Determining moisture
content levels is crucial to quality control in the
flooring
installation process. Moisture meters are an essential
tool for every professional floor mechanic. They can be used to
assess water damage,
and to determine when subsequent coats of finish can be applied.
Concrete
Moisture Meters Designed for Jobsite Realities
SlabSafe concrete
moisture meters are designed to find excessive
substrate moisture, which causes the majority of floor
covering failures. Brickman Consulting has conducted
thousands of inspections - each with scores frustrated
stakeholders - in which expensive floor coverings were
ruined by a culprit that is frustratingly easy to find
and eliminate...If you have the
right information
SLABSAFE
HANDHELD RELATIVE HUMIDITY METER
SlabSafe is a durable
handheld relative humidity meter with a streamlined
design. Similar products come with higher price tags and
plastic sleeves that can be easily lost. It’s simple:
drill a hole that is 40% of the overall depth of the
slab, let the interior of the hole equilibrate and drop
SlabSafe in for a reading that is ASTM F2170 compliant.
Excessive moisture in a concrete slab is the number one
reason for failures of floor coverings and coatings.
Failures translate directly into lost time and money.
Save yourself the headache: measure the relative
humidity of the concrete slab prior to installation.
Concrete is made by
mixing aggregates of varying sizes (sand, gravel, or
crushed stone), Portland Cement, and water. The water
and Portland cement mix together to form a new chemical
compound that is referred to as paste. This paste –
which is initially in liquid form – is then mixed with
the aggregate. It flows into the spaces that occur
between all of the individual pieces of aggregate.
Curing begins during the initial combining of the
ingredients that make up concrete and continues long
into the future. The process of curing is defined as
the chemical reaction that starts to occur when the
Portland cement and water are combined. Curing causes
the paste to harden, binding the aggregate together. Any
water leftover from the original mixing that is not used
in the chemical reaction remains as water droplets
distributed throughout the paste portion of the
concrete.
Although the terms curing
and drying are often used interchangeably, it is
important to note that they are quite different. Drying
refers to the evaporation of water from the exposed
surfaces of the concrete that occurs immediately after
it is poured. Curing refers specifically to the chemical
reaction described above. It is not unusual to have
very high interior moisture levels in a concrete floor
slab that is many months or possibly several years old.
The water-to-cement ratio that occurs during the initial
mixing is the primary factor that influences the amount
of residual moisture contained in the concrete. The
amount of water required to chemically react all of the
Portland cement is fixed by the quantity of the Portland
cement in the mix. It is common practice to add extra
water making the concrete “soupy” so that it flows and
levels more easily and makes it easier to place the
freshly mixed concrete when pouring a floor, or in the
case of high-rise construction extra water is added to
make it easier to pump the concrete to the upper
floors. Since the chemical reaction of curing occurs
over time, some of the residual water trapped within the
concrete becomes part of the cement paste as it
continues to react or cure. In fact some of this
additional water is important to the curing process that
gradually increases the strength of the concrete. During
the initial curing period (7 to 10 days), additional
water must be added to the surface to replace the water
that evaporates from the surface or a sheet of plastic
is placed over the surface to inhibit surface
evaporation. Curing compounds are also sometimes applied
to the surface to inhibit surface evaporation.
