Using the proper piece of moisture detection equipment at the appropriate time is essential for a professional water damage restorer to accurately collect data in affected and unaffected areas, monitor drying progress throughout the course of the drying effort, and determine when affected materials have reached the drying standard. Too often, companies fall short in training technicians on what meters to use in certain situations, and as a result come up with inaccurate moisture readings and insufficient moisture mapping results.
Though technology has increased greatly over the last decade, many of the same principles of moisture detection still apply as they did years ago. Technicians are to meter unaffected areas in the structure to formulate a dry standard for the project (and use historical knowledge if unaffected materials aren’t present), and declare the drying project “done” once affected materials have reached these goals. The two basic types of moisture detection equipment, moisture meters and moisture sensors, still exist today as they did in the past. The moisture meter produces a numerical readout telling the technician how much moisture a material contains, while the moisture sensor simply tells whether a material has elevated moisture with an audible beeping sound.