Which tool to trust

From yesterday inspection IR camera indicated no thermal differential above the base board on this shower stall the moisture meter pegged out 100% which one would you trust. I had one inch of water standing within the shower stall.

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In that case i would trust the thermal Most likely metal corner , But that is just me lol

No metal corner;-)

well then i have to go with Moisture meter, Would have to physical see what was going on , Looks like tile now that i looked closer , Was the grout cracked?

Nope grout not cracked tile on the inside sheet rock on the exterior. I was just messing with ya Repair guy had made some repair with spackling which messed the moisture meter up and the thermal was indicating same temp as the spackle temp assumed the temp of the dry wall

LOL good one I ran into the metal once with the moisture meter wasn’t on a corner though someone decided to run a piece of flat metal .

I would trust both.

Some tune-up may just show what your looking for.

I think I see some apparent moisture.

Ya sure did the spacke was still wet;-)

Behind the baseboard looks that way to me.

You tested just on top of it…

Ok John are ya telling me ya can see behind the baseboard:D:D no I tested all around the area it was just the mud that was wet I had very warm water in the shower basin. You are trying to analyize this thing to death nothing there but wet mud as it came out of the can

You can trust both Charlie.

One tool tells you that there is a particular thermal pattern, based on emitted infrared radiation (I always trust what that tool tells me, but it never tells me that something is wet). The other tool tells me that the material I am testing contains moisture (I always trust what it tells me, as long as I keep it out of metal)

You will often get the same effect with MDF trim which has absorbed moisture but shows no thermal indication (minimal evaporation). That same MDF trim might peg out with the MM.

The moral for home inspectors is: trust your IR imager to do what it is designed to do, so long as you know how to operate it (i.e., show you thermal anomalies). But don’t rely solely on a thermal imager to tell you something that it can’t give you a definitive answer on (i.e., whether something is wet).

Great info guys, appreciate you taking the time to post the photos and advice.

I did a 40,000 s.f. roof the other night and my tool told me it was wet. I didn’t poke it with a moisture meter. Was my tool wrong?:wink:

You guys are missing the boat here I did trust my camera in this case over the Moisture meter because I knew why the meter was reading 100% I could see the wet mud from the day before repair the home was vacant no heat on with low 50’s for over night temps it did not dry but the mud was the same temp as the dry wall due to time so basically no thermal pattern.

Trust me the shower pan was not leaking I am the shower pan cowboy

Therefore, as Chuck said, you can trust both of them as both tools were correct in the way they were designed :wink:

No I am looking for a leaking shower pan not wet mud the meter was of no concern for the end result could of stuck a bucket of water and got the same results. The meter would have read 100% If I had stuck metal corner trim and that would not have made the shower pan leak, same thing as I indicated
You guys are just wanting to to make a mountion from a mole hill.

To be truthful I in most cases will trust the IR over a moisture meter to many hidden items will register the meter the Old IR just reads temp and its on me then to read the why of the temp

Then you should say what you mean Charlie and provide others with the same information that you had at hand. The question and the premise for it was a bit contrived and self-serving.

Tools don’t draw conclusions, inspectors do. Good inspectors analyze things based on what they observe directly and through the proper use of available tools. If you knew that there was a recent sheetrock repair and the mud was wet, why would you bother to stick your moisture probes into it and take a fuzzy picture of it?

Until it’s verified it’s “suspected”. Your “tool” (at least not your thermal imager) didn’t say it was wet, it simply displayed a thermal pattern based on incident infrared radiation.

Well Chuck I did not know it was wet from mud until I stuck it and sometimes I just like fuzzy images???

Thanks Chuck,
I was just giving Charlie a hard time. I reported the thermal anomalies as being consistent with moisture trapped under the roofing membrane and recommended confirmation with core sampling.