The air you breathe in your home can flow up to 50 percent from your crawl space, so keeping your crawl space as clean and dry as possible is important. Also ventilated crawl spaces might retain moisture and pose water damage from mold, wood rot, and pest infestation and reduced energy efficiency to your house. Moisture can cause an array of unwanted issues, so keeping excess moisture out of your residence is crucial.
What is crawl space encapsulation?
Encapsulation is the process to isolate the space beneath your house from your living area. It requires trapping all outside winds, installing a high-performance moisture retarder (also known as a vapor barrier) on all exposed interior and exterior surfaces, isolating walls and joist rims, and air conditioning. It also includes installing a dehumidifier to lower the potential for condensation.
Advantages of encapsulating your crawl space
Here are some of the important advantages:
- Improves quality of air
Crawl space encapsulation helps promote the circulation of clean air throughout your home making it healthier for your family and friends to breathe. Unsealed crawl spaces are moisturizing breeding places. Humid air no longer circulates throughout your home when moisture is removed.
- Prevents mold and mildew issues
Unnecessary humidity problems are prevented by the removal of moisture from under your home. And no musty, humid odors from your heating and air conditioning unit will enter your home.
- Increases energy efficiency
Crawl spaces are rarely conditioned unlike homes built on a slab, or above a basement. That implies the floors in your home, depending on the season, maybe either warmer or colder than the rest of the home. It is conditioned and sealed when a room is encapsulated, saving loads of energy that was only leaking out before. When the closed-cell foam is used and rim joists are insulated, typical energy savings are 15-20 percent.
- Prevents structural damage
It’s vital to prevent moisture from building up in your crawl space for the long-term stability of the foundation of your home. If you prevent humidity from gathering in your crawl space, you also prevent it from seeping through to the dirt that surrounds the foundation of your home.
Gutters aim for water away from the foundation of your home, but a moist crawling space beneath your home can cause trouble. Crawl encapsulation helps avoid the retention of moisture and makes the base more stable for years.
*Special thanks to Elite Moisture Solutions for providing us with the encapsulated crawl space illustration and information on how to seal a crawl space.
