WOOD & LAMINATE FULLY ARMED
Jason Wright, business development specialist for new products at Wagner Meters, explains the three essential tools every contractor should have at hand to help avoid moisture problems in a wood floor.
Moisture can wreak havoc on any wood floor. Indeed, it’s the number-one cause
of wood flooring failures. And yet,
problems like crowning, cupping, warping, and buckling can almost always be prevented.
So, what can you do to prevent costly moisture-related headaches from happening to you? Simple. Invest in the right tools and learn to use them.
Flooring professionals rely on many different tools – saws, sanders, safety equipment, tape measures, and more – for a successful flooring installation. And to avoid moisture problems, you need tools designed for that purpose.
We will consider three easy-to-use tools that can help ensure you don’t run into post-installation issues due to moisture.
They are: ● Smart Logger ● Orion pinless moisture meter ● Floor Sentry
SMART LOGGER FOR PROPER ACCLIMATISATION OF
WOOD FLOORING The Smart Logger is a small device that monitors the relative humidity and temperature at your jobsite. It helps you know that the right environmental conditions are being maintained for the wood flooring to acclimatise before installation.
Why does this matter?
Well, if the building is not being maintained at service conditions, the wood is going to either absorb excess moisture or overdry, depending on the environment.
When the building is put into service later, and the relative humidity and temperature adjust accordingly, the wood will again respond by absorbing or releasing moisture. The resulting swelling or shrinking of the floorboards, if significant, could lead to serious problems.
Using a Smart Logger helps you avoid these issues. The Smart Logger becomes your eyes on the jobsite 24/7. It stores time-stamped relative humidity and temperature data that you can retrieve any time you visit the jobsite. This way, you’ll know for sure whether the site has the right conditions for acclimatisation.
Best of all, the Smart Logger is simple to use.
Its small size makes it easy to place anywhere inside the building where you wish to monitor conditions. And with the complimentary app, you can retrieve and share your data using your smartphone.
ORION PINLESS METER FOR MEASURING WOOD MOISTURE
CONTENT The most basic but essential tool for preventing moisture problems is a wood moisture meter. You really can’t get along without it when installing a wood floor.
After all, you must know the moisture content of the wood – that is, if you wish to avoid a moisture-related disaster like buckling or warping.
However, not just any wood moisture meter will do. There are two types of meters: pin and pinless. For working with wood flooring, you definitely want a pinless meter. That’s because it won’t harm the wood by leaving unsightly pinholes the way a pin meter does.
The Orion 950 pinless wood moisture meter provides unparalleled accuracy and comes with an app that stores all your time-stamped moisture data.
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In addition, you want a meter you can rely on for accurate readings. Otherwise, you won’t know for sure whether the wood is close to the equilibrium moisture content (EMC)—meaning
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