How Can I Fix My Crawl Space?

If your home has a crawl space, it is probably musty, dirty, and dingy. Many homes in southern Pennsylvania have musty crawl spaces with ineffective insulation and unpleasant odors. Like most homeowners, you want your house to be nice and clean. What will it take to fix your crawl space?

South Central Services has insulated hundreds of homes with spray foam. Crawl spaces have become one of our areas of expertise since they contribute to energy inefficiency without proper insulation. When we finish with a crawl space, it is clean, dry, and accessible.

By the end of this article, you will understand:

• Why the average crawl space is dirty and musty
• What would make your crawl space better
• How to fix your crawl space to make it better

The Average Crawl Space Is Dirty And Musty.

Most crawl spaces are dusty and musty-smelling, but why? Crawl spaces are located underground, meaning they are surrounded by dirt and moisture. Even with stone or concrete walls, the ground's dampness spreads into the crawl space.

Some crawl spaces have insulation that attempts to deal with their musty nature. Your crawl space may have a thin tarp laid over the floor or batt insulation stuffed into the ceiling. Even with the plastic on the ground and the insulation overhead, the crawl space is still dirty and musty.

No matter how much natural ventilation occurs in the crawl space, it just can't get dry. Think of this like a log in the summertime. Even if the top of a log is dry in the summer heat, you can roll it over and find a damp environment. Similarly, no amount of air can circulate through the crawl space to dry it out.

What Would Make Your Crawl Space Better?

There are 5 things that would improve your crawl space. Here’s a preview.

1. Better smelling air
2. Cleaner environment
3. More accessibility
4. Fewer pest infestations
5. Less worrying

Let’s examine these in more detail.

1. Your Crawl Space Should Smell Better.

Did you know that the air in your crawl space exchanges with the air you breathe in your home? Depending on the weather outside, the clean air you pay to make warmer or cooler is replaced with dirty crawl space air.

Fixing your crawl space would mean conditioning the air in the crawl space. No longer should your crawl space have a dirty or musty odor.

If any air is exchanged between your home and your crawl space, it should be clean air.

2. Your Crawl Space Should Be Clean.

One of the reasons crawl spaces smell so unpleasant is their damp dirt floors. As undesirable as dirt floors may be and smell, the more significant problem is the damp environment.

With enough moisture, your crawl space can grow mold and mildew. Both of these can contribute to musty smells, as well as serious health concerns.

Fixing your crawl space would include removing excess moisture that leads to mold. Your crawl space shouldn't grow mold.

3. Your Crawl Space Should Be Accessible.

Many crawl spaces house HVAC equipment and plumbing. Accessing this machinery can be a dirty chore when it needs to be maintained.

Fixing your crawl space would mean having a clean floor that didn't stain your knees with dust or mud when you visited.

While you cannot change the structural height of your crawl space, you can eliminate the dread of crawling inside to fix something.

4. Your Crawl Space Should Be Rodent-Free.

No matter the state of the insulation, many crawl spaces are home to rodents and insects. Spiders spin webs and mice make themselves at home. If batt insulation has fallen out of the ceiling cavities, it makes a suitable nesting material for rodents.

Ideally, rodents and insects shouldn't be in our homes, even if they are more scared of us than we are of them. If you've ever seen a mouse running across your floor or seen a spider skittering down your wall, you understand the desire for a pest-free home.

Fixing your crawl space would include pest prevention. An ideal crawl space would not be home to mice or rats. They wouldn't find their way inside or be able to make nests in your insulation.

5. You Should Be Able To Forget About Your Crawl Space.

Homeownership will always require maintenance. Things do not last forever. However, your crawl space should be an area of your home that you don't have to worry about.

The best crawl space solution would be permanent, even if it required some maintenance.

Encapsulation Is The Solution To Improve Your Crawl Space

If the crawl space we described sounds like the one you want, it is attainable. The encapsulation method makes an accessible crawl space with clean air and fewer pest problems possible.

Encapsulating a crawl space keeps it part of your conditioned space. Air can still be exchanged between your crawl space and your living space, but the air that is exchanged is clean and dry.

How Does Encapsulation Fix A Crawl Space?

Encapsulation puts a thick vapor barrier on the crawl space floor to stop the damp of the ground from infiltrating. This method also sprays a seamless thermal and vapor barrier on the crawl space walls.

Any area where air or moisture could infiltrate the crawl space is sealed off. What is left behind is clean, dry, and temperature controlled.

Encapsulated crawl spaces make it difficult for pests to invade. There are no open seams or holes to crawl through. An encapsulated crawl space also offers no nesting material for rodents.

After encapsulation, moisture can be controlled through existing HVAC ductwork or a crawl space dehumidifier. Rather than leaving the crawl space to the element, its air can be conditioned like the rest of the home.

An encapsulated crawl space is easy to navigate. You can access it without dirt, dust, or smell, even with short crawl space walls.

Encapsulation requires some annual maintenance, like changing the filter on your dehumidifier. If a tear in the floor's vapor barrier occurs, it should be repaired with professional-grade crawl space tape. However, for most of the year, your crawl space does not have to take up any of your thoughts. You also will not have to reconsider or evaluate a new crawl space solution down the road.

If you want to fix your crawl space, encapsulation is the solution you need.

The Bottom Line About Fixing Your Crawl Space

Most crawl spaces in our service area are musty and dirty. The worst crawl spaces are breeding grounds for mold due to excessive moisture. At best, your crawl space is an unpleasant door you try not to open, secretly responsible for your cold floors.

There are solutions to fixing crawl spaces. For homeowners living around southern Pennsylvania, we recommend encapsulation. Encapsulating your crawl space will treat the moisture and air infiltration problems.

Now that you know you need encapsulation for your crawl space, your next step is to:

• Estimate how much encapsulating your crawl space will cost
• Discover if a dehumidifier alone can fix some crawl space problems
• Learn whether DIY crawl space encapsulation is feasible for you