Has anyone any views about cheap moisture meters eg the ones for under
10 quid on ebay or the ones recently sold by Aldi?I would like to be able to poke something at a normal plastered house wall to see if remedial work is reducing the damp.
I have a CPC one very similar to
It works well, and has both timber and masonary scales. You do need to understant how to use it, and hence when the readings are meaningful.
Downsides - no backlight (can be a problem if using it in some dark corner of the attic), and no hold function, so if it can only be used in a position where you can't see the display, you can't see the reading.
A £10 multimeter would have far more uses
NT
Yes, maybe, and I have made up some probes for my multimeter using sewing needles, bits of plastic and sugru to pierce insulation (to measure fuses in laptops), but I've now bought a moisture meter with hold function (thanks Andrew) for just over 7 quid.
We'll see how I get on when it arrives. Not sure why it has 4 probes.
Waste of time.
The problem is, they tell you if something's damp but not why. You have to work out whether it's condensation or rising damp or penetrating damp.
Condensation is the most common problem.
No they don't, they tell you conductivity. Its not the same. There are several problems with them, making the results of little value.
NT
In message , harryagain writes
Well, the free postage should get it here by Friday. It's for son no2's 'new' house and it's really just a question of doing the obvious things first, then seeing if any improvement takes place.
I don't _think_ it's condensation. We can sort some penetrating damp. We have 2 structural survey reports, both saying they can't tell if there is a damp course problem. There is nothing bad, it's just that we want to get it all as good as possible while in the first flush of enthusiasm and without panicking his SWMBO.
I think 7 quid on a meter that we can probably also use to check the wood for his bother's log burner was worth a punt.
^^^^^^ Another name for his SWMBO?
Best to split a log and gently place the probes on the newly exposed surface. You will almost certainly break the thing if you try and push it into wood. The ones used in the timber trade have very sturdy probes which are literally hammered into the log
In message , stuart noble writes
Thanks. And it was brother's, not bother's.
I'm still searching for a way to stop my hair falling out and getting under the keys. :-)
I've got the Aldi one, for checking the logs before feeding the woodburner. It does give varying indications that do match the dampness of the wood but wether when it says 15% it really is 15% I don't know. Provided you make decent contact with the timber the readings are fairly consistent.
Provided you can remember what the readings were before it'll do that within broadish terms. Good record keeping is required.
If the house has been unoccupied for a while, any results won't mean a thing. You will likely get erroneous results everywhere. Especially if it's an old building. You need to get some heat on for a few weeks and lived in, then do the tests. More of a clue is to look for visible signs, black mould, peeling paint/papers, stains. timber damage etc etc.
Rising/penetrating damp is a lot rarer than these damp cure companies would like you to believe. Most only need attention to roof/gutters/pointing etc. Check ground levels.
When you understand the science and do the right work, there should be little question of whether it works. Hence I idly wonder if you're sure the right things have been done.
What are the damp symptoms present? You should be able to judge progress by watching those change.
NT
In message , snipped-for-privacy@care2.com writes
The house had to be bought quickly to avoid losing the mortgage offer that had been provided for a different house **. Nothing has been done wrt damp yet.
None that we can see. We think the small areas of peeling paint are just the wrong paint used on hardboard. Similarly the fallen bathroom tile seems to have never been fixed to a decent surface. There is evidence of less than average diy. We know an excellent friendly surveyor. He reported some areas of damp, but only had time to say verbally "Buy it". I am hoping to be able to walk round the house, notebook in hand, with him this evening.
I can see guttering/drainpipe problems and a level problem outside the back door. His report, and an earlier (8 years ago) full structural survey both say the house was not well built, but the settlement stopped many years ago and all now seems stable.
** All was agreed on other house, mortgage through, but with an offer ends-by date, when the seller's solicitor announced that he couldn't do it on time and had booked a month's holiday. We feel terrible about pulling out and letting the seller down, but.......
If there are no symptoms of a damp problem, then by definition there is no damp problem. This sort of misdiagnosis is widespread.
NT
In message , snipped-for-privacy@care2.com writes
Similar warnings are added whenever the subject of damp meters appears. Would it be possible for 'someone who know' to add a wiki article on the subject for the benefit of the majority who touch a meter to a wall, see a reading and panic?
There are 2 schools of thought that disagree with each other on point after point; how would we unify that into a wiki article?
NT
Good point. I don't know. I have never bought such a meter because I just know that I would poke the nearest wall and then worry about the result, without really understanding what it was telling me, or why.
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