We Don’t Guess – We Test!
It’s one thing to say a product works – that’s marketing! However, can the company you’re dealing with prove their product works the way it’s advertised?
Masonry Technology Incorporated feels that their customers deserve quality products that are tested and proven to work the way we say they do. In that vein MTI has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure you, our customer, get exactly what you pay for! For several years MTI has been using independent testing labs to test our products. The results of these tests can be found in the Testing section of this website.
R & D Lab Constructed
However, this wasn’t enough proof for MTI so in 2006 we built our own Research and Development lab. This facility allowed us to test new products and modify them as needed; it allowed us to replicate tests that we had sent out so that our customers could view them as though they had actually been at the original tests; it also gave us the capability to do tests no one else was set up to do or had even considered doing be cause it was too time consuming and too expensive.
MTI felt that it needed to have additional proof as to what was going on inside walls when they were subjected to moisture. Sure we could measure what was sprayed on the surface, and we could see what was running off the surface and what was soaking in, and we could measure what ran out our weeps at the bottom. But how long did water stay at each level in a wall system, and where exactly in the wall system did water go when our drainage plane was added? These, and many other interior moisture questions, needed answers, but getting them was a real issue!
Seeing the Inside
After much research we found the answer with OmniSense moisture sensors. Originally developed for the roofing industry, these sensors could give us an excellent picture of what was going on inside test wall panels. The OmniSense sensors could measure a variety of interior moisture issues from humidity to WME (wood moisture equivalent) a key component in the development of mold and rot.
This was an expensive investment, a single 8’ by 4’ wall panel involved over $1500 dollars worth of sensors in addition to the thousands spent on design, building and materials, and we built many wall panels in many configurations! However, MTI felt that this was, and is, a very beneficial investment in knowledge for us and for our customers. When we say our products work, we have the scientific proof that they do.
Live and in Person
One final, and we think, exciting note. It is now possible for our customers to view live testing online and see the water being introduced onto the outside of the panels while at the same time seeing the readings of the sensors on the inside! Stay tuned to this Web site for a chance to watch our next live testing