Proster Pin Moisture Meter - Dual Mode for Wood/Wall/Building | Pin-type Moisture Tester Dual modes: Wood 6-60%/Building 1.5-33% Backlit VA LCD Data Hold MAX/MIN Auto-calibration+Auto-off

I have several areas in my house where I keep an eye out for moisture intrusion. My roof is nearing the end of its life, and one of the exterior walls is solid brick that is more than 100 years old. Because of that, monitoring moisture levels is important for catching problems early. I already own a pinless moisture meter, which I mainly use on masonry surfaces. This pin-type meter is a good complement because it can measure moisture directly in materials such as wood, drywall, plaster, and lumber. I also use it as a second way to verify readings when I want to double-check a suspicious area. For my purposes, I’m mainly looking for relative moisture changes that might indicate a leak or moisture intrusion, and this meter works very well for that. The display is bright and easy to read, the probes penetrate materials easily, and the readings appear quickly. Overall, this is a simple, practical tool that does exactly what it is supposed to do. If you want an affordable way to monitor moisture in wood or drywall and check for possible water leaks, this meter offers very good value and has earned a place in my home maintenance toolkit.

I used this to test my walls when I suspected an in-wall leak on the bathroom wetwall. gave me some good fast readings and accurate enough that I was able to get a fairly good guess at the location of the leak and limit my demo. In that sense, it is very much worth the money. the meter is well built, and operates pretty easily. I'm not entirely sold on the accuracy though as I don't have a definitive way to tell exactly how accurate it is, just that it's able to provide a good relative comparison to the area around it.

I have a failing downspout in one corner of my house. I suspect it got clogged up with debris below ground level and it is overflowing into my basement wall. You can see the water bloom stains on the wall. I wanted to be able to track moisture levels over time to see if it is getting better after I did some grading outside to shed water away from my foundation. As you can see, my grading did not work. It was months ago and I am still getting higher water levels in that specific wall. So I suspect I will need to get a contractor out to excavate and repair the drainage over there. That's going to be expensive, but at least I don't have to wonder about it anymore. Now I have solid evidence that my first attempts to dry out that wall failed and I can spend money strategically going forward to address the moisture problem. So I am really glad I got this meter, and I'm really glad it does seem to work properly. All I did was poke the wall firmly with the test leads and read the results. Recommended.

I got this to see how moist wood was at stores. Especially pressure treated wood as that would shrink a lot after it’s had time to dry. I’ve had to push very hard in order to get a reading. This would make sense in a dry board but on a moist board I still need to push hard to the point where I feel like the tips might break off. Overall not bad but not a fan of the wood I need to do for it to get a reading.

So I was really hopeful for this moisture tester. It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time. I was let down by this unit. Opening the box I was initially excited. It comes in a nice case, feels solidly made and has rubber grips on the side which also add to a high quality feel. The display is bright and responsive and well laid out. Plenty of room for everything. Prongs are sharp and apparently sturdy (I tested this on accident). Has a nice protective cap which also doubles as a calibration device for the meter, which leads me to my two star review despite all this glowing praise… This thing simply does not work. No matter how much I jam it in to every type of wood I can find, it simply reads out nothing. If I short press the power button, it flashes the same measurement no matter what. Building mode did not fare any better. Actually, the only thing that DID give a reading was.. my finger. Evidently my finger is 24.6 moist wood. Nice. At this point I consulted the manual. It says all you need to do is poke the wood along the grain and it will read out the measurement. Nope. Upon closer inspection of the instructions is when I found out the cap is also a calibration. It’s supposed to read a set number within a certain range when capped and powered on. Still no reading. Now, another review tipped me off that the A B C etc settings are for different types of wood.. none of which are common in America, even if you go to a fancy hardwood supplier. This still doesn’t explain why building materials or the cap didn’t give a reading. Such a shame.

The Proster pin-type moisture meter is a practical tool for quickly checking moisture levels in both wood and common building materials, making it useful for everything from firewood and lumber to walls and subfloors. The backlit, anti-glare LCD is easy to read in dim areas like basements or garages, and features like HOLD plus MAX/MIN tracking make it simple to document readings or monitor drying progress over time. I also like how fast it is to use—just power on, select the mode, and take a measurement—while the compact size, rubberized grip, included batteries, and storage bag make it a convenient grab-and-go kit for DIY work or jobsite checks.

Alles Gut, Tut was er soll

I swapped it for a better one

I have only used this moisture meter on firewood, but I found it functioned well and gave accurate readings. I already owned a General Tools & Instruments MMD4E Digital Moisture Meter and I chose the Proster Moisture Meters Wood Moisture Tester as a back up. I compared readings between the General Tools' reader and this one. They both gave readings within 1% of each other on every piece of firewood that I tested. There's another review claiming that the meter doesn't work. You do have to push quite hard in order to drive the pins into the wood that you're testing, but this is the case with all pin type moisture meters. I can't speak to the long term durability, but in the short term, I like the tool. The readings are accurate and the display is clean. The temperature reading is a bit unnecessary, but it's a kind of nice bonus feature.

Unlike standard LCD screens, this high-contrast display remains perfectly legible even in the dim lighting of a basement or attic. The numbers are bright and easy to read from awkward angles, which helps when you are reaching behind furniture. I found the device to be ergonomically shaped, with a rubberized grip that feels secure in the hand while pushing the pins into hard materials. Switching between the different material modes is essential, as the settings for wood versus building materials like concrete produce very different results. I tested it on my firewood stack and it accurately distinguished between seasoned logs and green wood, saving me from a smoky fire. For drywall, it helped trace the extent of a water stain effectively, though you have to be okay with leaving tiny pinholes in the surface. The auto-calibration feature upon startup happens quickly and gives a sense of confidence that the readings are baseline correct. The pins are sharp and penetrate well, but they are relatively short, so it only measures surface moisture rather than deep core dampness. It comes with a protective cap that also houses the calibration test points, which is a smart design choice to keep it accurate. It uses standard batteries which are easy to replace.

Let's start with the basics of this moisture meter. It comes with a carrying case and they include batteries for it which is nice. The meter is comfortable to hold and in general, easy to use. The pin cap has a built in tester to check the accuracy of the meter. The manual however, is almost useless as it talks about one model, but shows a different model. And it does not give any information regarding the Janka scale. It just expects you to know it. I'll give some information about this later. To test the meter, simply poke the test pins into the holes on the cap and it should read 18.6% for the wood setting, and 17% for the BLDG setting. That is exactly what I got when testing it. This meter has an auto off feature if not used for 3 minutes, but you can lock that out to keep it on. You can also switch between Fahrenheit and Celsius. The screen is clear and easy to read. I tested this meter against my other moisture meter and basically got the same results on both. It appears to be accurate. But I did find one problem. And this is the reason for taking off one star. The building materials scale goes from 1.5 to 33% which seems to work fine. However, the Wood scale is supposed to go from 6 to 60% and it does not go over 33.6% even with saturated wood. So regardless of the setting, this meter will not read moisture over about 33%. On the wood setting, you press the arrow key and it will cycle between setting A to H. These letters are based on the Janka scale so I will give you a short, basic summary of what that is. (For those who don't already know) A (Softest): Woods like Eastern White Pine (380 lbf) and Basswood (410 lbf) B: Includes Douglas Fir (660 lbf) and Southern Yellow Pine (870 lbf) C: Red Oak (1,290 lbf) and White Oak (1,360 lbf) D: Hard Maple (1,450 lbf) and Ash (1,320 lbf) E: Hickory (1,820 lbf) and Pecan (1,820 lbf) F: Brazilian Walnut (Ipe, 3,670 lbf) and Cumaru (3,540 lbf) G: Purpleheart (3,630 lbf) and Tamarindo (3,000 lbf) H (Hardest): Patagonian Rosewood (3,840 lbf) and Kurupayra (Anjico, 3,840 lbf) While testing the same piece of maple with each of the settings, it really did not make much difference so I'm not sure how accurate it would be to set the right scale for the type of wood. So unless it's really important to know the exact moisture of the wood, just leave it on setting A. On the box, it says: 2 in 1 Pin and Pinless. There is no mention of using this meter as pinless in the manual and I found no way to do so while testing it. Therefore, I consider this meter to be pin type only. All things considered; this moisture meter does work for reading up to 33%. It appears to be accurate and is easy to use. I will do more testing with it and if I have anything to add, I'll update this review.