FEATURE MANAGE MOISTURE
Jason Spangler, Wagner Meters’ Vice President of Sales, explains why it’s imperative not to leave moisture testing out of your commercial floorcovering installation.
Moisture testing isn’t just a one-off check to tell you when it’s safe to install flooring – it’s a powerful asset throughout the installation process. It helps you get your project started on the right foot and then protect it long after it’s completed.
Knowing how to incorporate moisture testing into your workflow will help you save time, money, and effort while protecting your professional reputation. By monitoring the moisture content in the materials you’re working with, you’ll be able to prevent expensive moisture damage and ensure high-quality installations.
THE DAMAGE MOISTURE TESTING PREVENTS
If you skip moisture testing, you run the risk of missing hidden excess moisture that could lead to adhesive failure or damage to the floorcovering.
For wooden materials, which are more susceptible to moisture, the first thing you may notice is a problem with the wood itself. If the concrete is too wet, the wood will swell and could cause cupping and, in extreme cases, buckling.
With non-wood floorcoverings such as laminate, carpet, or tile, adhesive failure is often the greatest concern. If the relative humidity (RH) is too high, moisture can condense below the adhesive and produce a caustic solution that can eventually break down your flooring adhesive.
Adhesive failure may not become apparent until further down the line, but just because it happens gradually certainly doesn’t mean it’s not a threat. Adhesive failure still causes flooring failure, hinders the longevity of your installation, and casts doubt on the quality of your work.
Fortunately, you can prevent moisture damage by understanding how to best manage moisture in every stage of your workflow – with ambient testing, RH testing, floor material testing, and post-installation monitoring.
PREPARING AMBIENT CONDITIONS
Before installing flooring, ensure the room is dry enough. Adjust the HVAC to get it to the right temperature and relative humidity (RH).
Appropriate service conditions may vary, depending on where you live and what kind of climate your region normally experiences. However, a temperature of 15.6C to 26.7C and RH between 30-50% is standard. Flooring manufacturers may also have guidelines on ideal service conditions.
An ambient data logger such as Smart Logger can monitor temperature and relative humidity over time rather than providing only a single reading. It can capture up to 16,384 readings at programmed intervals and transfer the results by Bluetooth to the Wagner Sentry app. This provides an accessible record of site conditions that can be stored and shared with clients.
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Once the room has reached stable service conditions, the concrete subfloor should be assessed.
CONCRETE SUBFLOOR TESTING
Even if the surface looks dry, the concrete slab could still have high levels of
moisture.The condensation from this moisture as it reaches the surface can endanger your flooring materials – especially if you’re working with wood.
One way to protect against moisture condensing on the surface during installation is by keeping the surface temperature of the concrete 5-10C higher than the dewpoint temperature.
To determine the dewpoint temperature, measure the ambient temperature and RH% and put them into a dewpoint calculator. You can use an infrared temperature gun to make sure the concrete surface is at the proper temperature to be outside the window of danger.
You can also use a handheld meter, like the C555 Concrete Moisture Meter, to examine surface moisture trends. The C555 is fast, non-damaging, and twice more accurate than competing meters. However, like any surface meter, it can only identify the moisture condition of the surface of the concrete slab. Many UK flooring installers are satisfied with that, but some prefer to dig a little deeper, since moisture deeper in the slab can take longer to move upward to the surface. Even if that’s the case, the C555 is often used to take relative readings, which helps identify higher moisture areas across the slab that may require further investigation with Rapid RH testing.
Te Orion 950 can send moisture readings to the FloorSmart app where it can be safely stored or turned into a data report.
www.tomorrowscontractfloors.co.uk
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