This is a blog post by Barry Eliason, which has been posted at the Private Eye moisture testing web site.
I received a call a few weeks ago that was typical of calls I get several times a year. It was the real estate agent for a client of mine that had recently hired me to do a moisture test on a stucco home they were buying. The moisture testing had found several areas of high moisture and even some soft or missing sheathing, indicating some structural damage. The sellers of the home questioned the accuracy of my report and hired another company to re-test the house. This other company did their testing from the interior rather than from the exterior as I had done. Their report to the home owners? “Every place we tested was dry”.
The agent on the phone was politely asking me if I thought I had gotten it wrong. First I summed up the situation. “Well, you now have two different opinions and we need to know which one of them is correct.” He agreed and wondered how to resolve the situation. My answer was to do what I had recommended in my initial report: remove some small pieces of stucco in the areas that tested high and see what's going on.
Click here to continue reading: How Accurate is Exterior Moisture Testing?
