“MAN, THIS IS CRAZY!” I said to Ruben, as I showed him the moisture-meter’s readouts on the corner front column. For years, I have been hunting the source of the moisture that keeps ruining the paint on this column—as discussed most recently HERE.
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| Illustration from the Home Depot product page |
The column was wet!
And we have no idea where the moisture is coming from!
Below the jump, I recount the situation in more detail.…
Today was the first time that I used our moisture meter to test the column itself. I took advantage of the cracks that recently developed in the paint. I inserted its probes into two of those cracks, so that they dug directly into the plaster.
I had expected to find the plaster “dry” (i.e., reading in the green zone). After all, the last known presence of water in the vicinity was my own test on May 27—which is more than 3 weeks ago. The most recent precipitation was a mere 0.05" on May 3. The marine layer lifted two days ago. (This was intended to be a baseline measurement, before I attempted to slowly pour more water into the adjacent planter, as a follow-up test.)
So I was shocked to see that the column’s plaster registered as “wet” (28.9%, in the red zone) in the first crack that I tried, and off the scale (> 33% moisture) in the second crack.
When I touched the second exposed area with my finger, it felt damp to the touch. Ruben did the same—and confirmed my conclusion.
What is making this column (and only this column) damp??
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