Heard the same thing from a guy at a supply shop down in Mesa, said the calcium in our water basically turns the pad into a rock by August. I used to get two summers out of mine but the last few years it's been one and done. What I started doing is pulling the pad out in fall and hosing it down good before I store it, seems to help a little. Still swapping every year though, just cheaper than dealing with the dust and the smell when they get bad.

That $22 meter just ended your Fluke's whole career. Funny how the expensive stuff sits in the van while the cheap one actually does the job.

Had the same thing happen on a deck job last summer. My old pin meter was reading way low so I grabbed a cheap oven and did the weight test on a few cutoffs, weighed them wet, dried them at 220 until the weight stopped dropping, then did the math myself. Turns out I was off by almost 8 points, which is a huge deal when you're nailing down deck boards. Now I keep a known dry scrap in the truck and check the meter against it before any big pour or frame up. Cost me a whole Saturday of rework, not $1,400, but still not a mistake I want to make twice.