elizabethg18•17d agoProlific Poster

Question about those cheap moisture meters from Amazon

I picked up a $15 moisture meter off Amazon last spring to check some lumber I was using for a deck rebuild. First few boards looked fine, but I got suspicious when it kept reading the same number on dry wood and wet wood. Took it to a buddy's job site who had a proper $200 meter and tested the same boards. The cheap one was off by like 8% on every reading. Luckily I only wasted about $15 and maybe 2 hours of work before I caught it, but has anyone else found a budget meter that actually works?

2 comments

2 Comments

west.anna17d ago

What was the brand of that cheap meter? Some of those $15 ones are basically toys, but there's a few that use the same chips as the $200 ones just with worse build quality. I've heard the ones with the two exposed pins are usually more reliable than the ones with the plastic casing around the probes, but no idea if that's actually true.

paulw8717d ago

You mentioned the two exposed pins being more reliable, and I think there's actually something else at play that nobody talks about. The cheap meters often use the same basic measurement principle as the expensive ones, but they don't calibrate for wood species or temperature. I found that out when I tested a $20 meter on pressure treated pine versus dry oak - the readings were completely different because the meter couldn't adjust for the chemicals and density. Even the better budget meters I've tried still struggle with this, so you're better off learning to use a simple scale and oven test for accuracy if you're serious about checking lumber. It's a pain, but it beats trusting a meter that's guessing half the time.