Why do we drive a probe into the sill plate? Because what’s dry on the surface isn’t always dry inside.
This tool is a hammer probe, and it's giving us a moisture reading directly from the sill plate—the horizontal wood framing that sits right on top of the foundation. It’s one of the first places to soak up water during a flood or leak, and one of the last to dry out. The reading here shows 14.9%, which means it is dry. For structural wood, anything below 16% is generally considered acceptable.
We don’t guess. We verify!
