Moisture Meter at Home Depot
 

Anyone tried one of these Ryobi units they sell at HD?

Never seen one before until I was poking around in the tool section. Would be very cool if they were decently accurate for the $40 price tag.

Hmm.. good find!! If no one has tried one of these I may volunteer to be the guinea pig..

Ditto.
 

Great find Rt930.

I would warn as many may know, I think moisture tests have probably falsely labeled rot as often as accurately doing so.
That being said, unless someone says these things are junk I will have one within days.

well it does say ryobi on it so it must be pretty close to junk! If you do a search for home inspection tools I am sure you can find a better one for a reasonable price.

The label says "pinless"? How is it suppose to penetrate the glass in a hull, to detect if there is mositure UNDER/BEHIND the glass.... Just saying....

I think.....
 

that's the way the good ones work. Not positive though.
When I was doing cruisers on Lake Erie I knew many buyers who's deals evaporated due to a surveyor w/a moisture meter.
Course I was buying aluminum boats at the time ;)

pstori, good point. Bought a Ryobi cordless drill kit to replace my 20 yr old Makita set that just needed batteries. Bought the Ryobi kit for less than the price of two Makita batteries.
2 yrs later it's batteries no longer hold a charge.

I could see it being ok for bare wood,which I'd think it's more designed for, but not sure I would trust a $40 tool to determine if I'm going to take a saw to my hull.

Guys, those meters are only for porous materials, i.e.: wood, drywall, concrete, etc.
It will be utterly useless in the marine world for checking hulls.

Just had my 18 Donzi surveyed and he used a FLIR camera. It shows moisture, delamination and is alot more accurate then the moisture meter. The good news was not a sign of moisture anywhere on the boat. The surveyer said the camera is like $15,000.

Mark

mark
are you going to the boatshow in geneva next week