Testing Basement Floor For Moisture

Concrete slabs are naturally breathing elements of a home readily taking in moisture and air expanding and contracting and shifting with nature.

Testing basement floor for moisture.

This page briefly describes moisture sources moisture movement mechanisms and typical basement moisture problems. Few scenes put fear into homeowners like spotting water on the basement floor for the first time and rightly so too because this can be a sign of bigger problems and must be taken seriously. It is not however the best test if you are planning to put an epoxy coating on the floor. A second direct test astm f 1869 standard test method for measuring moisture vapor emission rate of concrete subfloor using anhydrous calcium chloride was standardized in the 1990s by the subcommittee on practices of the committee on resilient floor coverings.

If you get moisture on the exposed surface then the problem is condensation. Water trickling out of walls. How and why water comes up from the basement floor can vary so investigative work is needed before panicking. However if you have moisture under.

This is a relative scale. When testing the moisture content in non wood materials such as concrete a relative scale of 0 to 100 is often used where 0 is bone dry and 100 is saturated. The floor covering must be removed. Flooring manufacturers rate their products based on the moisture levels they can tolerate and testing your slab can tell you if a particular flooring material is likely to perform adequately.

A third option a simple diy test can indicate the presence of excess moisture either on the slab surface or in the room s air but it cannot measure. For those slabs with a pre existing floor covering an extra step is involved to test for moisture. Plastic sheet moisture test. How to test a concrete floor for excessive moisture.

The insulation and ventilation in your finished basement will correct the problem. Moisture meters include visual led indicators related to the percent reading on the scale for dry moderate and saturated or wet readings. Seal around the edges and leave it for several days. Only then can you test properly for moisture using the following test methods.

This is a low cost low tech moisture test that can be useful for determining if you have moisture in a garage or basement floor. If there are any mortars grouts or adhesives they must be removed and ground down to expose a clean section of concrete.