2015

Wagner Meters offers the first Rapid RH® reusable moisture meter: the Rapid RH 5.0.   Wagner celebrates 50 years of offering quality moisture meters — now including four company divisions:   Forest Products Industry Woodworking Flooring Building Inspection   Wagner Meters has developed numerous patents over the years and holds many valuable patents that protect current products.

The Rapid RH® DataMaster™ wins the “Most Innovative Product” award at WOC. A hand-held device, the DataMaster paired touchscreen capabilites with Bluetooth™ technology to allow users to quickly and easily record all test data for a particular job site.

Company name changes to Wagner Meters to better express the solution they offer to the market — moisture meters.

Ed’s son, Eric, begins working at Wagner Electronics by assembling meters and occasionally helping out in the engineering and marketing departments.

The original Rapid RH® wins the “Most Innovative Product” awards at the World of Concrete (WOC).

Wagner Meters and CTLGroup collaborate to develop the Rapid RH®, an in-situ relative humidity testing system for concrete.

Howard Kanare (employed by CTLGroup, Portland Cement’s Material Testing Laboratory Service in Skokie, Ill.) and Wagner Meters suggest the first concepts of what was the first Rapid RH® tool for measuring moisture in concrete.

The L610 and L612 meters are introduced.   The Stack Probe is also introduced.   Industry experts estimate annual flooring failures due to moisture in concrete at more than $500 million.   Ed Wagner chairs a number of ASTM Standards committees and is a driving force in updating and publishing several ASTM Standards for testing moisture in wood.

Recession hits and Wagner begins to offer smaller hand-held pinless meters to the wood flooring and woodworking markets.   The L609, L606, L607 and L601-3 models are introduced.

Delmer Wagner retires and sells the majority of stock in Wagner Electronics to Ed Wagner.   Ed Wagner becomes president and CEO of the company.

Microprocessors are added to in-line systems to aid in-kiln troubleshooting…the combination of computers and the in-line moisture meters are sold to the Forest Products industry.

First Wagner pinless wood moisture meters invented: L600.

Ed Wagner is promoted to Production Manager.   Delmer Wagner invents an in-kiln moisture detector: Model 778.   Delmer introduces the in-kiln moisture detector.   Delmer figured out a way to use in-line meters to troubleshoot kilns.   Delmer develops a process to track season changes, comparing kilns performances with specific wood species and tracking exact location of each stack of wood. The amount of wood that came out too wet, with a need to be run through the kiln again, or too dry, causing it to warp, split and crack, had been significantly reduced.

Ed Wagner, Delmer’s son, starts working for Wagner Electronics. He begins with wiring, assembling, soldering, and testing meters.

Delmer Wagner founded Wagner Electronics.   He designs a second in-line transistorized moisture detector.   Delmer designs first transistorized in-line moisture meter with the first non-contact meter.   He also figures out how to calibrate the meters in percent moisture content.

Delmer develops the first in-line moisture detector using transistors for the Redmond sawmill.   The detector is smaller and more compact than traditional detectors. It was also more reliable, and easier to calibrate. Pleased with Delmer’s newly-designed moisture detector, the mill took out a patent on his device.   Delmer Wagner left the mill to teach at a local college.

Delmer Wagner worked for a sawmill in Redmond, Ore.   To measure moisture in lumber, mills used “contact moisture detectors” that were in a cabinet the size of a man and came quipped with radio vacuum tubes. They were hard to use, hard to calibrate, and hard to interpret.