Vented Crawl Space Winter Woes

Posted by cynthia in Crawl Space Insulation, Crawl Space Repair, Crawl Space Sealing, Crawl Space Vapor Barrier, Featured | 0 comments

This homeowner tried to make his home more comfortable by applying fiberglass insulation between the floor joists, in his vented crawl space

What Happens To A Vented Crawl Space In The Winter?
Crawl space vents are designed to pull outside air into your home, creating a continuous supply of outside air that moves through the crawl space at all times.

While many would debate the usefulness of ventilating a crawl space at any time of the year, contractors can certainly agree that during cold weather, these vents should be firmly closed. However, the truth of the matter is that few homeowners actually perform this yearly task.

How A Vented Crawl Space Affects Your Home’s Energy Efficiency
The purpose of your crawl space is to house the utilities in your home, including utilities that use energy to create heat, such as your home’s furnace and air duct system, as well as your hot water heater and pipes.

Housing these utilities in the crawl space during the cold winter season means that they will have to continually work harder and use more energy to do their daily task. This has a major impact on your home’s utility bills!

Moldy Crawlspace Nightmares: courtesy of your open crawl space vents.

Posted by cynthia in Crawl Space Dehumidifier, Crawl Space Encapsulation, Crawl Space Mold, Crawl Space Repair, Crawl Space Sealing, Crawl Space Vapor Barrier, Mold and Dry Rot, Uncategorized | 0 comments

via finehomebuilding.com

This is only one of the reasons why crawl space vents are such a bad idea!

Posted via web from basementsystemsinc’s posterous

What does Basement Systems do to Solve Humidity Problems?

Posted by jacques in Basement Waterproofing, Crawl Space Repair | 0 comments

A crawl space vapor barrier can prevent humidity and outside air from infiltrating your home.

For a crawl space, we install a 20-mil plastic crawl space vapor barrier called CleanSpace on the walls and floors. We also seal off the crawl space doors and vents to make an airtight space. If the crawl space has block walls, we seal off the open cavity on the top of the block with a clear plastic covering that allows termite inspectors to do their job without interfering with the installation. Once the crawl space is sealed, we can install a drain to take care of plumbing leaks, and we usually recommend a dehumidifier to help dry out the wood and keep the humidity levels appropriate in the space in the future.

Keep humidity out of your basement with ThermalDry basement flooring.

Basement Systems provides a variety of different basement wall products and floor matting, all of which will provide a vapor barrier on the surfaces that will keep humidity from entering the home through the walls and floors. There’s also a basement dehumidifier that we can install that, when combined with the wall and floor system, should help keep mold and dust mites from feeding off everything organic in the basement.

We also have many other products that will keep the house energy-efficient and safe from damage, including energy-efficient basement windows and energy saving window wells.

Home Inspector Recommends Basement Systems Products

Posted by richard in Basement Waterproofing, Crawl Space Repair | 0 comments

A local Connecticut home inspection company is using Basement Systems basement waterproofing and crawl space science to train Real Estate agents.

Inquiring Eye Home Inspections, located in Trumbull, CT are basement and crawl space specialists that help homeowners to not only find problems in new homes, but to assist them in making their homes healthier and more energy efficient.

The training helps Real Estate agents to learn to address damp and wet basements, and musty crawl spaces. Instead of leaving homeowners to deal with these situations on their own, Inquiring Eye Home Inspections helps them to understand the problems and solutions that basement and crawl space environments hold.

Crawl Space Pests

Posted by Francine in Crawl Space Repair | 0 comments

If you have an untouched crawl space in your home, it could be home to some unwanted guests.  Your crawl space could be hiding insects, nests or rodents.  House mice can cause a number of problems in a home ranging from allergic reactions to mouse urine to the spreading of fleas or ticks and even disease.

To keep mice and other rodents out, The National Pest Management Association recommends that you make sure all holes of larger diameter than a pencil are sealed in your home.  Mice can squeeze through spaces that are as small as a nickel!

Top 5 Tips for Sealing a Crawl Space

Posted by richard in Crawl Space Repair | 0 comments

From the Web site of Southface, a non-profit organization with the mission of saving energy, conserving water, and preserving the environment, comes a Top Ten List for Sealed Crawlspace Success.

The list discusses many of the issues that we here at Basement Systems have been addressing for the last 7 years, including the sealing of a crawl space with a thick, impermeable liner (you can’t save the planet if your throwing away a crawlspace full of 6-mil plastic every two years) and then conditioning the space.

You can see the crawl space list in it’s entirety at the Southface Web site, but as it deals with new construction, I have truncated it here to reflect sealing a crawl space in an existing home.

Here’s the list:

1. Moisture can enter the crawlspace when the home is being constructed, creating mold even before the home is completed. Proper drainage, sealing and insulating are important early in construction—before the floor joists are installed.