 A home with a dirt crawl space costs more to heat and cool. If your crawl space is vented, those vents make your floors cold upstairs in the winter. This is not only uncomfortable, but it costs more to heat your house.
Houses with dirt crawl spaces have damp air. Damp air uses more energy to heat and cool, and this costs more money. Damp air puts more of a "latent" (hidden) load on the HVAC system. Everyone knows they need to run their AC more on a humid day. If you get rid of the humidity from your crawl space, you save money on heating and cooling costs.
How much money will you save?
How much money? You will save 15% to 25%! That’s a lot of money! Over the years, it really adds up! You are paying the price each and every month in higher energy bills, by living in a house with a dirt crawl space. Of course there are variables, such as how many vents you have, whether you live in a one or two story home, if you have ducts in the crawl space, how big your crawl space is, etc.
These penalties from living with, and the savings from fixing the dirt crawl space problem are real, and proven. Advanced Energy, a private non-profit organization funded by both public and private funds, has done studies to measure these effects.
 In fact, the energy loss is so substantial in a home with a vented dirt crawl space with ducts, that you may as well ignore all other ways to save energy, until you fix the crawl space problem. Caulking around a window, or weather-stripping a door, would be like patching a tiny hole in a rowboat, and ignoring the foot-wide hole on the other side.
In one Advanced Energy study, the organization experimented with 12 identical new homes. Some of the homes had vented dirt crawl spaces, and others were sealed. By sub-metering the heat pumps, they found that the homes with the vented dirt crawl spaces cost $28 more to cool in a single month! (June 2003). But there are a few catches.
 First, the homes were small. If the homes were twice as big, we might expect twice as many dollars saved in energy costs. Second, the ones with a "vented dirt crawl space" had two things going for them that the average house with vented dirt crawl spaces does not. They had a 6 mil plastic ground cover down on the floor, and they had their ducts sealed. In a 100-house study in 1994, Advanced Energy determined that the average house has more than 300 cubic feet per minute of duct leakage, of which these comparison homes did not have.
If this control group of houses was more like the millions of real homes across the country, the difference in energy use would be even more dramatic.
Nevertheless, it doesn't take long before the numbers add up to serious money.
Spread across the 26 million homes with dirt crawl spaces, it is estimated that with just a 15% energy savings, homeowners in the U.S. alone would save 7 billion dollars annually! That's a lot of money that could be better spent somewhere else.
The Solution: The CleanSpace Crawl Space Encapsulation System
The solution is to seal a crawl space - sealing outside air out. The CleanSpace Crawl Space Encapsulation System does just that - it seals outside air out. The CleanSpace system lowers energy costs, helps prevent mold growth, protects against structural damage, and much more.
Read more about the CleanSpace system.
To Schedule a FREE Estimate and Crawl Space Inspection with a local CleanSpace Dealer, call us at 800-261-3708 or fill out our Contact Form and we'll be in touch with you shortly. PLUS you’ll receive a FREE copy of Crawl Space Science, that explains the concerns and solutions with crawl spaces and dehumidification.
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Finding ways to save energy at home is becoming increasingly more important as fuel prices rise. Below find three helpful Web sites to address this issue, an article on the importance of lowering relative humidity through dehumidification, and another on sealing outside air out to lower energy costs.
1. Energy Star Home Improvement Toolbox
Improve Your Energy Efficiency at Home. Use our
Home Improvement Toolbox to save money and help
protect the environment without sacrificing comfort.
The typical dehumidifier used in damp basements or crawl spaces removes moisture from the air, making the space more comfortable, as well as preventing the growth of mold and mildew. But did you know that dry air is easier to heat and cool? And effectively lowers both heating and cooling costs! A full 30% of an air conditioner's load is to remove humidity!
The SaniDry Air Systems are heavy-duty, 100 and 90-pint dehumidifiers approved by Energy Star.
Energy Star, a government-backed program, approves products to meet strict energy efficiency standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. The SaniDry basement dehumidifier runs on only 6.8 amps, the CSB model runs on 6.3 amps!