Moisture Inspection & Drying Verification

This page exists because of one question we are asked more than any other, usually four days into somebody else's job: is it actually dry, or does it just feel dry?

What the inspection produces

A dated set of readings taken across the affected area and at unaffected reference points in the same building, the instrument used at each, a note of the ambient conditions, photographs of the locations, and a plain statement of what the numbers mean. It is two to three pages. It is the document that lets you disagree with somebody and be right.

You get it whether or not any further work is ours, and that is the point of offering it separately.

The three moments it is worth buying

• Before the walls close. Once drywall, flooring and trim go back over a wet assembly, the next time anybody knows is when the finish fails or the smell starts. A reading here is the cheapest hour in the entire job.
• When a scope looks disproportionate. If a quote proposes removing a great deal more than seems wet, or a great deal less, readings settle it in an hour and cost less than being wrong either way.
• Before a sale or a purchase. A stain of unknown age on a ceiling is a negotiating position for whoever has the readings, and neither side usually has any.

What a moisture meter can and cannot tell you

A pin meter measures resistance between two probes driven into the material and gives a value for that material at that point. A pinless meter reads a shallow depth without marking the surface and is fast for scanning. A thermal camera does not detect moisture at all — it detects temperature difference, which often correlates with an evaporating wet area and often does not. Anybody presenting a thermal image on its own as proof of moisture is presenting an inference as a measurement.

Drying verification against a dry standard

A reading is meaningless in isolation. It is compared against the same material elsewhere in the same building that never got wet, which is the dry standard for that job. When the affected material has matched it across two consecutive days without equipment gaining ground, the drying is finished. That is the sentence a final report should contain, and if it does not, the job did not end on a measurement.

Independent water damage inspection for a landlord or a strata

Where the water crossed a boundary between two units or two owners, the argument that follows is about who pays, and it is decided by dated evidence. A report taken while the building is still wet is worth several times the same report taken afterwards from photographs. Book it before the equipment leaves.