The cheap moisture meter that saved my bathroom reno in Columbus
Last month I was tiling a master bath and the floor felt spongy under the backer board. Wife kept saying it was fine, but I pulled out my $25 pin meter from Amazon and it read 18% moisture. Contractor grade floors should sit around 12% or less before thinset. Turned out there was a slow leak behind the toilet flange that nobody caught. Ripped up the subfloor, fixed the pipe, waited three days. If I had skipped that cheap tool, I would have set tile over a rotting mess and blamed the customer. Anyone else ever catch a hidden problem with a stupid simple device instead of relying on feel?