Hello! I'm looking to put down some 3/4" solid Brazilian Cherry in 3" wide planks. I've done a lot of reading here and I'm fairly confident of the proceedure. I'd like to get a moisture meeter to analyze my subfloor and the wood for acclimation. Can someone give me a recommendation for an affordable unit for DIY use?

Harbor Freight and Rockler have some cheap meters, I have no clue as to how accurate they are though.

when analyzing the wood you are about to put down with the contact moisture meters, do you place the contacts on the finished side or unfinished side to get the reading?

As long as you stick the pins in with the grain. Check both sides, to see if you getting a consistant reading for that board. Check it in several places down the board. Do 3 or 4 boards, throughout your shippment to get an idea of what needs to happen.

I recently purchased a meter off the web from Extech (MO 200). You can find them listed on Amazon. The unit was around $70. It has a scale for wood and a scale for other building products (such as dry wall). Its a nice meter for the money.

I cann't speak for it's accuracy since I don;t have anything to compare it against.

I picked up one ofthe Habor Freight meters ($20). It read about 1/2 of what the Extech meter did? It looks very cheap?

Ok... I bought the Extech MO200. I also bought a temp/humity datalogger with a wireless remote sensor that I'm going to place in my crawlspace to monitor relative humity in both the crawlspace and in the house. I'm feeling kind of paranoid after reading through all the cupping threads.

I bought both units from a place called AmbientWeather.com The datalogger with remote wireless sensor was only $50. I'm going to buy an extra wireless sensor and use it as my own personal weather station.

http://www.ambientweather.com/lacrtewswiin.html

I don't have any association with the place. Just sharing the information.