Concrete Moisture Testing - Installation Quick Check
Hi, I'm David from Tramex Meters and today we're going to talk about the installation quick check for concrete moisture.
Even if pre-installation concrete moisture testing has been performed, conditions can change that will affect your installation of flooring or coatings.
By implementing this easy installation quick check you can prevent failures before they happen.
So, the first data point we're going to collect is the ambient conditions. The nice thing about the CMEX5, it has a built-in hygrometer, which is always listing the ambient conditions across the bottom and we're going to focus more, right now, on the dew point.
So, the dew point is 58°F in the air here for the ambient conditions, and then we're going to scan the surface temperature of the slab, and we're at 76°F.
So, we just want to make sure that the surface temperature of the slab is at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit above the dew point. If you happen to be working in Celsius you're going to keep that number at five °C, but here we have the meter set at Fahrenheit. There is an internal setting where you can switch to Celsius. We're working with a Fahrenheit number and we've made sure that we're at least 10°F above the ambient dew point with the surface temperature of the slab.
Now, the last step to perform, in the installation quick check, is to take a reading with the Concrete Moisture Encounter on the surface of the slab. The nice thing about the Concrete Moisture Encounters is that they're reading three-quarters into the depth of the slab and giving an actual quantitative percentage of moisture content reading.
So, when we take the surface reading, we want to make sure that we have a clean area. So, we've abraded this a little bit and gotten any residue off the surface of the slab and avoiding any paint or drywall mud. We're just going to press the meter on the surface and get a reading and, in each place, we take a reading. We want to go around the horn as we say, so we're going to do one at 12 o'clock, we're gonna take another reading at three o'clock, we'll take another one at six o'clock, nine o'clock, back to 12 o'clock, and then we're gonna take the highest number. So, my highest number was four percent in this area. So, we'll note the four percent number.
Industry professionals generally recommend a number of 4%MC percent for floor coverings and 3.5%MC for concrete coatings. When taking surface readings you want to make sure you take at least eight readings in the first thousand square feet, and five readings in each additional thousand square feet thereafter.
Industry standards say that if no pre-installation moisture testing was performed, and flooring or coating encounters a failure due to moisture after install, the responsibility falls on the installer.
Tramex recommends our Installation Quick Check as a way to protect yourself against any moisture-related claims after your installation.
There are two kit options that can be used to perform the Installation Quick Check for Concrete, the first, which I was using, includes the CMEX5 digital Concrete Moisture Encounter with an Infrared Thermometer, this is the Installation Quick Check Plus Kit - IQCPK. The second kit includes our analog CME5 Concrete Moisture Encounter with Infrared Dew Point Scan Thermometer this is the Installation Quick Check Kit - IQCK. Both come in a convenient carry case and are equipped with Bluetooth to connect to our Tramex Meters App.