Dr.Meter MD912 Tools Digital Moisture Meter For Wood, Sheetrock, Carpets, 2-Pin Sensor

I'm a home inspector. I started my own business in the beginning of the year and this was one of the "must have" tools in my repertoire. Luckily, being on a tight budget was not a problem as this very effective and accurate device was well priced. It was ready to go right out of the box. I started testing everything in my own home. The shower walls, under my water heater, kitchen and bathroom sinks; my own arm. Everything met the tongs of the moisture meter that day. For work, it's great. Leave it at the common setting (3) to test things around homes; unless you're some kind of wood or surface expert and you'll get great readings every time.

I bought this to replace an older more expensive unit that has served me well for years. I made several repairs before I figured it wouldn't last long or be very accurate. I do word work and I also heat with wood so I know a little about it all. This meter performed the same on accuracy and is easy to use. For the money this meter is a steal and performs as well as more expensive units. One tip, make sure the meter and the product are at the same temperature! This really applies to any meter but it makes a huge difference. In short, you can't go wrong with this. Beginners to old timers alike will be pleased. Only drawback, I'm afraid to push to hard into hard wood. Maybe it's me but I'm not confident in any plastics. This applies to anything but I'll just have to "push through it". Upside, they'll replace it if I break it.

We just bought our first home with a fireplace inside of the home. In fact our home has two fireplaces. Knowing that we are not in a season to buy well dried and seasoned wood, I was very worried about getting taken advantage of with wet unburnable wood. I bought this moisture gage on the suggestion of my chimney sweep. He told me what to look for when I bought one, and was actually here to use it when I got my first load of firewood. It turns out the firewood was a little more moist than ideal but it still burnt. This gauge was really good at measuring the levels of moisture in the wood. Pieces that were obviously more wet had a significantly higher content than those that were dry and splitting. I'm very excited to have this tool on hand, because it is very easy for someone to sell you wet wood at an inflated price in the middle of the winter... I really like that there's a cover for the prongs and a case to keep it in.

Overall the meter is well built and easy to use. In repeat testing on a single sample in a somewhat controlled environment it yielded fairly consistent results. That being said, it seems that when identical materials like a group of 2 x 4 lumber were tested after residing in the same environment for several months, the results varied by quite a bit. More than you would expect given similar materials while acknowledging that some differences would appear as wood is a natural material. Overall I'm not sure what to make of this except that perhaps for the price point this is about as accurate of a meter as you are going to get.

I cut live wood to use for custom woodworking projects that has to be dried. Previously, I've always just used the standard rule of thumb of 1 year of drying time for every inch of thickness. After having some pieces continue to warp and split, I decided to get this to check the moisture content so that I can know exactly what it is instead of just hoping it's dry enough. Some of the wood that I had drying for over a year had a moisture content of 15%. Checking kiln dried wood reads around 5-7%. The meter responds quickly and seems to have repeatable results within a a percentage point or two. When using it, be sure that you select the correct wood group (1-4 as listed in the manual) as that will affect the reading. Also, be sure to insert the pins far enough into the wood to get a correct reading.

meter doesn't function as designed. i tried it on some oak boards which read some of them but not all, same for cherry. tried several other species of wood and was not able to get a reading of any kind. in one case the meter got a reading at one section of a board but wouldn't read on the other end of the board. tried contacting histest.com cs by phone and got nothing, then tried email got nothing, then tried calling and got hung up on several times in a row. meter went back in the box and returned.

Update: The original meter I received did not work, but the companies customer service was very good. They replaced the defective meter quickly. The replacement meter works well with a couple of caveats. Sometimes I worry that I will break the shell when I insert the pins. You can feel the plastic flex and it feels pretty flimsy, but it hasn't broken yet. The on button gets pressed often when it is in it's case turning it on and causing me to waste a lot of 9v batteries. I need to remember to disconnect the battery when I put it away. Other those issues it is a fine moisture meter and for the price a good deal.

We were affected by severe flooding in our neighborhood. A week or two later, we started noticing that the wood floors were creaking and there seems to be marks on some of the drywall: Long story short, we had water trapped in the walls and under the floor. I wanted to get some idea for myself (since the insurance adjuster dismissed the idea that there was all damage). Since I am the opposite of a professional woodworker or contractor, I needed something fairly idiot-proof. This moisture meter was just the thing! It gave me a rough idea where the problems were in both the floor and drywall. It doesn't really matter how accurate it is in an absolute way (though, having now compared it to results from the contractors' expensive meters, it seems to have been good). Anyway, this turned out to have been very easy to use and mostly intuitive, though the complete lack of an actual user's manual means that I'm sure that I'm missing some things. In any case, it was money extremely well-spent in letting us figure out where there was hidden water. I definitely recommend it. Note, I am reviewing the MD912 "upgraded version."