Vented Crawl Space Winter Woes

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!
read moreWhich Problems does Basement Systems Solve with their Products?
There are two major problems with subterranean space in the housing industry- concrete and dirt foundations in basements and vents in crawl spaces.
Concrete and dirt are both porous materials, and when basement and crawl space walls and floors are built out of these materials, moisture from around the foundation is able to constantly pass through. This is what makes basements the infamously damp, dreary, and moldy spaces.
Likewise, the vents in crawl spaces also let in enormous amounts of humidity in the summer. When warm air rises in a home, it exits through the upper levels. This creates a vacuum in the lower levels, which pulls air upwards from the crawl space. This in turn creates a vacuum in the crawl space, and air is pulled from the vents to replace it. So crawl space vents don’t ventilate air so much as they pull air in from the outside. This pulls humidity in the crawl space and home, causing rot, mold, and mildew in the space. Wet wood attracts termites, and rotting crawl spaces lead to sagging floors and possible structural damage, so the problems begin to stack on top of themselves pretty quickly. And in the winter, the same crawl space vents will allow cold air into the crawl space, which also saves on utility bills.
read moreYour Dirt Crawl Space is Costing You Money!
It costs more to heat and cool a home with a dirt crawl space. If the crawl space is vented, this causes the floors to be cold upstairs which leads to spiking heating costs. The damp air in the crawl space rises. It takes a lot of energy to heat and cool damp air and definitely puts more of a stress on an HVAC system.
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