Valiant Moisture Meter

[Vedhoggar]

A Valiant moisture meter arrived this morning and did a quick comparison test with two other moisture meters the Dr Meter MD 812 (same as Dolmar MM-400) and a MD-4G moisture meter which is a 4 prong meter unlike the other two which have only 2 prongs and best suited to measuring firewood.

 

First reading taken was on Scots pine felled and split August 2020 and stacked outside in 50cm lengths uncovered for 8 months before being cut into 25cm lengths and stacked in a well ventilated shed for a month. The log was split down the middle and readings taken 5cm from each end as well at the centre across the log, the Valiant average was 18.7% (Amber wood okay to burn), DR Meter 812  20.67% and MD-4G 22%. The Scots pine burns "okay".

 

Second reading was on an old pine kitchen table in room with woodburning stove on most of the time (room temperature 21.5C), so very dry, the readings were Valiant 11%, Dr Meter 812 10% and MD-4G 13%.

 

Measuring accuracy stated for Valiant +/-2% and the other two meters +/- 1%.

 

The Valiant seems well made, compact and easy to use. The function modes are wood, plastered walls and temperature. The meter it states can be also be used to measure the moisture content of structural wood but no separate function for this but when reading the moisture content of firewood the screen is colour coded according to how suitable the firewood is for burning so I suppose just consider the colour of screen for firewood.

 

[openspaceman]

I've ordered one, I could not allow myself to be part of the excuse to increase the wages of the top bods at Hetas so got a deal a couple of quid cheaper online.

[openspaceman]

On 10/05/2021 at 18:38, openspaceman said:

I've ordered one, I could not allow myself to be part of the excuse to increase the wages of the top bods at Hetas so got a deal a couple of quid cheaper online.

Having played with mine a bit now I accept that it seems reasonably consistent and if the split face is around 20% reading it's fit to burn. Most of my wood is reading around 11-15% on the exposed faces and about 30% in the middle so to get a homogeneous reading I cut a near square section of beech and removed 2" from each end such that all 6 faces gave readings between 28% and 30%. I oven dried this from 131 grams to 98 grams.

 

So 28% on the meter oven dried to 25.2% mc wwb or 33.7mc dwb

 

Still not convinced but tending toward wwb.