The Basics About Crawl Spaces for Cold and Humid Climates

As an energy auditor, certified through the local Maryland utility, I am responsible to help homeowners figure out solutions for their damp or cold crawl space and explain to them in easy-to-understand ways the benefits of insulating it right.

00:00 How Can this Episode Help?
02:48 Recent Crawl Space Visit
04:52 The Reason this Encapsulated Crawl Space is not Encapsulated

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Homecome for Tactics. My name is Eric Gans.  And today I want to talk to you about the basics of crawl space encapsulation.  And the reason why I think it is relevant is two things. One, we're in the middle of summer and crawl spaces tend to be problematic around Maryland in the summer due to the humidity.

Although this year, 2023 has been  You know, a little less humid than most summers, at least from my memory.  But the other reason why I wanted to talk about this is because I went and did an energy audit this past week, and I was, uh, meeting with the homeowner initially,  and in the initial stages of the audit.

I don't really see anything. I just sort of go through and hear what, you know, the homeowner has to say and they kind of report out the different things maybe they've done or what their understanding of the situation is, particularly in the crawl space.  So for, in other words, you know, if a person has maybe popped their head in the attic, they may say, Oh yeah, well I've seen, you know, three or four inches of insulation or Maybe they have a crawl space and they've had a home inspection and the home inspector reported to them.

Oh yeah, you know, you've got insulation down there or possibly they've even gone down themselves to take a look around and maybe only one or two times and just gather just enough information.  And then, there's the situation like the other day where this particular homeowner actually had contracted out work and specifically used the word encapsulation when I was meeting with him. 

And I thought it would be really a good thing for me to sort of go through from my vantage point, which,  I'm learning new things every day, um, I don't claim that I can do everything perfectly. But  I'm going to tell you the fundamental,  you know, components of an encapsulated crawlspace.  And then beyond that, you know, there's definitely a few things that could be talked about and could be discussed.

And there's a few things that probably need to be done above and beyond, but I just want to get into just the basics.  And the reason I want to do that is so that you can,  and I say this a lot, but I want you to be in the driver's seat. If you don't want to go on your crawlspace, that's fine. You know, but if you know what needs to be done in your crawlspace, then you're not going to get taken advantage of. 

And this is what happened the other day. So, I went And did, you know, the walk around and got the report from the homeowner and, uh, got outside. And usually what I do is, uh, if the crawl space is accessible from the exterior, then once I start my audit and I go do my outside, uh, information gathering, I'll just go ahead and visit the crawl space right away.

And that's what I did. And when I got down there,  I really expected to see an encapsulated crawl space. I myself  just assumed that the homeowner was, you know, knew what he was talking about and  had a contractor that knew what they were talking about.  And when I opened the door, the little hatch door on the side of the foundation to get in at first sight, yeah, it was,  you know, there was a vapor barrier down.

It was very neat.  It was very flat. And I think that maybe had something to do with the fact that the, uh, the family or the crawl space floor was concrete.  Uh, but I have to look back at that cause I can't remember, but it didn't seem like it was hurting my knees or anything.  But anyway, I went through and as I started to,  you know, make my way into the crawl space,  I was met with,  a lot of spider webs. 

And I wasn't really quite sure what was going on because in an encapsulated crawl space, there really shouldn't be a way for any type of spiders to get in. Well, I mean, you can't stop them all, but it shouldn't be,  you know, especially with a relatively new crawl space.  If there was work done down there and it was sealed off properly, then maybe there wouldn't be that many spiders to create spiderwebs basically all throughout this crawl space.

So I was going through and it was about four foot, four and a half foot to the sub floor. So there was plenty of space for me to move around, but I was, you know, hitting crawl, uh, cobweb after cobweb after cobweb.  And when I finally got a chance to sort of turn around and get a good look at what was going on, boom. 

I saw it.  There was absolutely no insulation in one of the most critical places in the crawl space that you need to seal and insulate. So,  If that space was encapsulated, then that was going to be the very first strike against that even being a possibility. In other words, no. As soon as I saw that, the crawlspace was not encapsulated.

So,  that brings me to the characteristics of a crawlspace. And if you can understand a few really simple concepts. Then you could even pop your head in and evaluate your crawl space on your own. To determine whether or not it's encapsulated. To even kind of determine, you know, what condition it's in.

Because, you could have a crawl space that is in terrible condition. You can have a crawl space that's in medium condition. And then you can also have one that's in You know, really good condition. So, and what we're talking about here is relative to how it's insulated.  Alright, so the first thing that I do when I get into a crawlspace is I do look at, you know, the vapor barrier. 

And the vapor barrier is going to be a thick sheet of plastic that is carefully  positioned and placed over the entire  crawlspace floor.  So when you look and you see plastic, because often times you will,  The first tell tale sign that it's not really doing anything for you is if it's folded up, if you can see dirt underneath, if you can see even concrete underneath, if you can see rocks underneath.

Basically what I'm saying here is that in order for a vapor barrier to be effective, it needs to be completely, again, covering the floor of the crawlspace, and it needs to be sealed. And that's tricky too.  So to take your, you know, evaluation a step further, where the vapor barrier is attached or comes up to the foundation wall, or any type of pier, you want to make sure you look at how it is secured or sealed to the wall.

Because that's going to be important. Because believe me, the moisture will find its way. Right up and around if it is not sealed 100 percent and one of the best solutions for that is foam now That's asking a lot. That's asking a lot most homes. They don't have Good crawlspace insulation. Most homes have the old bad insulation at the crawlspace ceiling Which most people refer to as insulation at the floor You know, their crawl space, but really it's at the ceiling of the crawl space, and that's just that's unless it's done right.

It's not. That's not going to cut it. To make matters worse, most crawl spaces have vents on the side. And that was old school thinking. Allowing moisture in the summer to enter in and get trapped in the space. And then, hey, you know, we're not there yet, but the winter, you're just going to get a ton of cold air.

And a lot of people that have crawl spaces complain about cold floors. And you wonder why.  So, back to it.  That vapor barrier needs to be sealed. Now, next, if you find that that is the case, or not the case, then you can pretty much determine right now whether, yes, you have an encapsulated crawl, you're on your way to one, or no, because if you don't have a vapor barrier that's 100 percent sealed, then you don't have an encapsulated crawl space. 

All right, next, the wall. So the wall is probably the least important of the, let's call it three, there might be another one hidden in there somewhere in terms of components of the crawlspace. So we've got the floor, we've got the wall, and then we've got the most important spot, which is the space between the top of the foundation wall and the subfloor  around the perimeter of the space to the outside.

So, that gets a little complicated trying to explain in a podcast. But, for simplicity, it's called the Rim and Band Joist. And you can look it up and, you know, I'm gonna, in my YouTube version of the podcast, I'll put some pictures to have people be able to sort of see what it looks like. But if you're listening to this for, you know, on the road or something like that, basically, again, it's the space between the top of the foundation wall and the subfloor.

So, that space To the perimeter of the house around the foundation of a crawl space, as well as where the vents are located, which are generally in the same area, they are the leakiest parts. That's where you're getting your infiltration, most of your infiltration of air. That's where you're getting most of your infiltration of little pests. 

So,  That is going to be a critical spot. Now there's a few ways to be able to seal and insulate that, but before we get to that, let's back up to the wall. In Maryland, the wall needs to be a minimum of R11.  So that's one of the lowest r values required on any surface and that just tells you a little bit more about what I was saying in lay terms that the foundation wall, although important, is the least important, you know, part of the cross space encapsulation. 

But let's get back fast forward to the final component which is the rim and band joist, not the final but the most important in my opinion. And that is going to be the Again, the space between the floor and the top of the wall, but we can do it a few ways We can use two part spray foam, which I highly recommend and that is just going to blanket that area.

It's gonna cover it It's gonna and we're gonna use closed cells. So no moisture can pass through Insects can't pass through if there's ever a need to Get into a specific area if it covers a pipe and that pipe needs some type of maintenance You can always Access through spray foam. Spray foam is easy to, uh, take apart and then repair.

So it's a great solution for sealing up the rim and band joist,  especially in a tight space like a crawl space where, you know, you are, you always have to think about when it comes to an insulation project. I kind of like to call it the psychology of it. You always have to think about. When you have a human being working in a tight space, working around a lot of different things, you know, what is going to be the most effective solution?

Not only taking into account the surface and the place that the insulation needs to go, but also taking into consideration the person who needs to apply. You know, the measure or apply the technique or the treatment to the surface or to the area. You need to be able to do it well. It's a lot of attention to detail and using two part spray foam, it's a great product.

It's expensive. But it takes a little bit of the margin of error away from the human element so that it allows, I guess it's a little more forgiving. And it's also a superior product. So you get the best results in those tight spaces with the two part spray foam.  Having said that, if your crawl space has four or five feet of, um, you know, space and you're on a budget, you can still get an, and I have done this too for people, gotten an effective, uh, result with just using, uh, one part spray foam or something.

Little bit better, but equivalent to something you could find in Home Depot like great stuff  So that's kind of my my spiel. These are the things you want to look for to sum it up your crawl space If it's encapsulated properly, it's gonna have a vapor barrier properly sealed It's gonna have insulation on the walls and your rim and band joists is gonna be completely air sealed and insulated and in Maryland insulated to R19  One final thing, a little hidden, if you do have an outside hatch leading to your crawlspace from the outside,  you absolutely need to make sure that that is airtight and also insulated. 

Because the whole idea of an encapsulated crawlspace is to make the space in that crawlspace  semi conditioned.