Testing Basement Floor For Moisture

For those slabs with a pre existing floor covering an extra step is involved to test for moisture.

Testing basement floor for moisture.

If there are any mortars grouts or adhesives they must be removed and ground down to expose a clean section of concrete. Only then can you test properly for moisture using the following test methods. Concrete slabs are naturally breathing elements of a home readily taking in moisture and air expanding and contracting and shifting with nature. 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.

However if you have moisture under. This page briefly describes moisture sources moisture movement mechanisms and typical basement moisture problems. Plastic sheet moisture test. The insulation and ventilation in your finished basement will correct the problem.

Seal around the edges and leave it for several days. How and why water comes up from the basement floor can vary so investigative work is needed before panicking. 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. Then a step by step process for addressing each problem is presented along with several detailed approaches to solving the problem.

If you get moisture on the exposed surface then the problem is condensation. To test your basement for moisture tape a piece of plastic or tin foil onto the basement floor. This is a relative scale. How to test a concrete floor for excessive moisture.

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. 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. Standing water on floor. Water trickling out of walls.

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. 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.