wood moisture monitoring

Moisture in wood affects many aspects of wood.
For this reason, the wood is usually dry before the timber yard is sold.
The amount of water in rough wood varies by species and region.
It is not uncommon for newly cut logs to have an original moisture content of 80% or more.
Depending on the planned use of the wood, this may or may not be an issue.
Wood for general use has a wide range of acceptable, so moisture content is not a key issue.
For some purposes, however, more stringent controls are required for moisture content.
For example, when installing a wood floor, the moisture content of the floor must match the relative humidity of the indoor air.
Mismatch in moisture content can lead to poor surface quality and lead to bending or coronation.
For this reason, good installers use a wood moisture meter to verify the moisture content of the floor before installation.
Material inspectors, professional carpenters and woodworking enthusiasts who want to get professional results have also invested in a good moisture meter.
If the wood will be used in situations where precision assembly is required and the tolerances are strict, the moisture content of this wood is ideally balanced with the relative humidity of the surrounding air as well.
When this balance occurs, the wood does not expand by absorbing moisture from the humid air, nor does it shrink or crack by losing its own moisture to the dry air.
This equilibrium state is called equilibrium water content.
Equilibrium moisture content is a precise point rarely achieved in real-world conditions.
Humidity levels fluctuate constantly, which is why doors or wooden drawers with tight tolerances sometimes stick together during the wet summer months.
As long as the moisture content of the wood and the humidity of the air are relatively close at the time of construction, the amount of shrinkage and expansion of the wood will be the smallest.
There are two types of wood moisture meters, and two types of wood moisture meters can be used to determine whether the moisture content of the wood is available for planned use.
Resistance or Pin humidity meter some humidity meters relate the resistance of the wood to its water content.
They are often referred to as pin moisture meters.
Insert the small pin into the wood and measure the resistance between the pins through the wood fiber.
Pins are used as electrodes for wood moisture sensors.
Water conducts electricity, and the resistance measured by wood fibers is inversely proportional to the water content of the wood;
Lower resistance means higher moisture content.
Because the electrode must be inserted into the plate, it is measured with a pin moisture meter on March of the wood surface.
They are also relatively slow to measure.
The high quality dielectric or needle-free moisture meter uses different technologies and is plug-in without pins.
They measured the dielectric constant of the wood by not measuring it at all.
Destructive surface contact
The dielectric is a measurement of the electrical energy that the material can store.
With the increase of wood water content, the dielectric properties of wood increase.
Although the wood moisture sensor is placed on the surface of the wood, the medium is measured electronically in the depths of the plate.
This depth measurement eliminates inaccurate readings of surface moisture and provides a more accurate picture of the real moisture content of the wood.
The elimination of fine holes makes these meters ideal for expensive wood and provides results in seconds.
The dielectric properties change as the temperature changes, but a good wood moisture meter automatically compensates for the temperature.
The best moisture meter is also adjustable for wood type.
The moisture content of expensive tropical wood is very different from that of standard hard wood or soft pine trees.
This difference may be crucial when creating inlays in furniture construction or adding exotic wood to domestic varieties.
While a high quality woodworking moisture meter can be expensive, real craftsmen understand the value of this tool.
Even if a buckled floor or damaged cabinet is avoided, the cost of the device can easily be justified.