Crawl Spaces : Good vs Bad 

Same thing I was thinking, when you got money then things will be done by the most expensive professionals. I've been to enough third world countries were I've seen people live in those nasty crawl space conditions and call it home.

Where's the money Skylar

@@layicorn Skyler..... WHERE IS THE MONEY!!??!

The whole point of the channel is for best building practices, though, not just the most cost effective. You can take these principles and make your own compromises based on your own budget.

Can you share in photos?

I am The same as you… and a 49 year lady who uses a walker and wheelchair. I cannot afford to hire anyone and and I care about my home, my mortgage makes me be able to afford a decent but modest place to live. There are wires all over the ground and that frightens me- the ductwork and plumbing are nicely hung/ supported… but past workers left old materials scattered, it went and moist.. a couple of 12inx12 in (6 in depth) shoveled? Areas… that have little pools of water.. the rest is just damp and thick muddy by the back side of the house brick foundation line. I am overwhelmed and not sure where to begin. Cleaning for sure. Checking for any dangerous wiring, I have installed a French drain in my front yard and am thinking I should put one in along the back of the home. Alternatively, my home slopes downward, so perhaps a vapor barrier and concrete poured over. Being disabled and on a fixed income is not ideal right about now! 😂

@@pullingweeds-managingcptsd252 start with outside grading and extending your gutter down spout run off drains

Yes I can take some photos it’s raining today so I was going to do a little bit of investigation depending on how hard it rains I was under there yesterday and did find a couple of skeletal remains luckily not human but I’ll joking aside last time I was down there I was electrocuted by a live wire which we had an electrician come out and cap off. I now know that I need to turn off the main breaker and clean the wire mess up I think mostly as a lot of cable wire that’s just been cut through the years and satellite dish wiring at Cetera. Anyway I will see if I can get down far enough today I’m a little achy due to the rain on top of my normal issues but if not I have a window that was busted out that I built a frame and put in a pane of glass and I’m insulating the glass and getting ready to put that into the brick area that contains the metal frame for the window that is actually embedded into the construction so I am also adding a layer of foam insulation board to the back of it and installing the window in front of it. But I will not install the insulation board until I finish working because until I permanently install the window that I built and then caulk it in etc. I can take it out for work purposes and ventilation. I can actually crawl through the little holes that divide up the old window that had acrylic in it if I really wanted to which I don’t but since I can crawl through it means that I can also lean through to take pictures and at least zoom in so you can get an idea even if they’re not the best quality. One question that I do have is that I want to replace the insulation because it is just hanging down probably from aids and rodents or other critters in some places the wooden floor joists and the wood flooring are still sound I have already checked. This past winter we did actually have a Water main break and the city just left it for a week because they said that the man who needed to cut the concrete was on vacation mind you they only needed to cut 2 ft.² but anyway it flooded our yard which I trench to my French drain which I had already installed and then hi later had to go back and trench from the backyard where the French drain lets out which is actually the side yard and it’s past the house of course I had to trench down to the woods behind our house and we live on 3/4 acre so it was a very tedious long job. I re-graded the front yard when I had to repair all of the trenching that I had to do to save my crawlspace because it was so very flooded but the area most affected is the area that I didn’t have to trench and so I actually was able to quickly add soil and build up the front side yesterday in the area that is most affected. I totally went on a bunny trail there but anyway insulation so I want to tear down the old road yucky insulation and I’m thinking insulation board. Opinions? By the way I apologize for the run-on‘s and grammar issues but I have nerve damage and can’t feel my hands although they are functional but typing on my iPad is really creepy so I speak and it turns into a book unfortunately and it turns into conversational writing::: so I just wanted to explain I’m not just being a flake. Lol

@@Tomtom9401 I am not sure how to share the photos here?

*WHERE IS THE MONEY!*

Alberto2341 10k that's a great deal, someone had a similar problem, but this was caused by their own pluming system that got clogged up for Who knows how long, until a pipe bursted and started flooding the crawl space going all the way up through the floors in to the bedrooms, the quote they got was about $60 grand. Not a good situation.

Gil Zr bruh

breaking bad

@@isaaclim1104 lmao

John Limongello I wonder if anyone is buried in my crawlspace.

Oh I hope she was ok

@@comcfi No. She was dead. Grandma was DAYD !

@@comcfi she was she’s just chillin

A husband murdered his step son and buried him in the crawl. The new owner's wife went down to check something and found shoes poking up. She tried to grab them but couldn't. Husband checked and discovered femurs, so cops were called.

Right, can't build no basements by the coast. Also when you are in the flood zone, not everyone want to build houses on piers as it will require to climb staircase, so you can see tons of older houses built on 2ft ventilated crawlspaces that currently are getting encapsulated by local contractors due to high humidity.

LOL, the 10K you did not spend was a frigging deal!

Forbidden User w wow

That's why they'll also pay to upgrade/update your sewer system to the street to avoid these problems

That’s a happy ending!

I just quit working with a plumber partially because of these issues. One house we were called to he boasted how he had done a main sewer line repair at the house but we had to go back to clear the drain again. What I found was that he had simply put in a cleanout just inside the access but when he ran the snake he broke the rest of the old 3 1/2 inch thin sewer. So, for years the sewer had drained into the very sloped crawlspace. The air was so bad possums had gone in and died from the gas. We had to pump out the sewage and then make the repair. Later the owner had to replace the rest of the drain all the way to the street. A large tree had put roots into the line. Crawlspace from hell. I get sick with just remembering.

Walt please please just hear me out please

If you have a vented crawlspace and want to convert it, what is the best way? Vapor barrier the ground (I have concrete) and close cell foam the walls?

@@tGGgGg-sp9yx AHAHAHAHAHHHAAHAHA Lol I love this

AND CONDITIONED

Mark, There are ways to make crawl spaces better. In MI, we often slide in I-beams and raise the house up and add block. I am going to build a new house on a crawl. It will be 4 blocks high, (32 inches) and after all underground is installed, I will pour a 3" slab. Firing strips will run across all joists at 2 ft. o.c., and install R-38. My furnace / a.c, and hot water on demand will be in the attic. All water supply will come from overhead. All will be heat taped, insulated, and set into the fiberglass R-38. I am retired, but jacking up houses here is very common practice. Many basements were 6-6 and 7' tall. They lift them and add block to make 8 ft. basements.

I am living in a house now with a vented crawlspace (1956 house). I'm pretty sure it is or soon will be, a squirrel nursery.

Looking at the same thing with my grandma's cheap old rental with a vented crawl space. The house isn't worth enough to upgrade the crawl space, so I think the best option is to seal the vents in the winter and open them in the summer.

Or even cheaper you just put the ground floor a bit higher and make a full storey for utilities out of a half basement.

Trying to figure that out myself. Ive got a 4 ft high half basement here in CT. I guess if they made it 7 ft that would either mean a couple extra steps to the front door or they would have to dig out the extra 3 ft and maybe hit water? I don’t know but if not then it just seems foolish to build this way.

I despise any space that is below ground level. Ground water is a constant concern, and expensive to control. I much rather have a crawlspace built on a slab.

I'm curious if crawlspaces have fewer radon gas issues than basements.

I'd love to see details, video & stills, of the construction of your house.

Well said , crawl spaces built, right cost alot less.

The house I grew in had a crawl space. Just the dirt that the house sits on is the floor. It never got muddy under there. It actually looked better than the photos of the disasters in this video. The house is in the central valley of California.

Seems like no modern houses built in Southern California have basements for sure, but a fair number of old ones do. I've known several people in my area that have basements, but typically those houses are early 1900ish.

I wouldn't expect tract homes to have basements in California.

I unfortunately have water Ingress into my crawl space because of a very high water table. I have two sump pumps down there on the perimeter dumping it out. No matter what happens when it rains water will get in through the foundation. I have downspout extensions and my house is on a crown sloping the soil away from the house. I do have a vapor barrier but I pulled it back a foot from the foundation and dug a trench to the sump pumps. I keep the vents open in the summertime to have the air flow reduce the moisture. Not much I can do in the winter time. Not sure if a French drain would solve this or not. All of my neighbors have this issue. Wish there was a cheap or easy solution but it does not appear that there is one.

@@paulsallee4889 It sounds like your gutter and exterior drainage has already been addressed. There will always be some moisture intrusion. The easiest solution is to run a dehumidifier year-round, and keep it encapsulated. I keep a wet-vac in the crawl, but only use it for dust cleanup since I got the gutters all working.

better call saul!

No... not if its done correctly... termites, moisture, air, etc... closed-cell foam takes care of it all... but it is spendy.

devin m good job guy

Dosadoodle - I’m in the process of tearing down my 100+ year old home here in SW Florida (it’s so grossly inefficient and while 4k+ sqft uses space terribly) and building a new one. These videos have been a goldmine for me as I’d never thought about these things until now. One interesting bit, I’m going with a company that takes my blueprints and builds the house shell in ~65 pieces out of a sandwich of concrete board and 8” of closed-cell foam... it looks and builds just like a normal house except it’s airtight with the windows in less than a week !! Not to mention the Herr (I think? The insulation score) score of 50 with the triple glazed hurricane proof windows... with the Tesla SolarRoof and PowerWalls (and a bunch of other whizbang renewable tech) I’ll never repeat the 11 days without power we suffered after Hurricane Irma !!

I'm in Dallas and I'm about to replace all of the beams under my house because of wood rot. The sub floor is fine, but the prior owner did a closed cell foam under the floor, sealing in any moisture that migrated down from the living space. Anyone ever spill a glass of water? If so, now you have moisture that will get stuck on top of the closed foam, and rot it. This is why my beams failed, but the plywood decking did not.

Underground swimming pool with auto-fill built-in :D ... I bet if you purposely make auto-fill, it wouldn't work properly ;) Let me know if you break Michael Phelps record swimming in it ...

And a vapor barrier over soil? Isn’t that really risky from moisture naturally rising up through the soil? Sorry, I’m just inquisitive.

A spray foamed vented crawl space in the south is a disaster waiting to happen.

MrNateSPF - 12:51 I read your comment _just_ as he said it... made my day :)

MrNateSPF I think he meant to say “closed cell foam”

Lilly yeeetsbanana's he did say closed cell foam. I played it in slow mo

Glynn Jones you dont need to fix it. Having the open ventilated space will keep things nice and dry.

We have a vented crawl space in our home here in South Jersey, built in 1962, issue we have though is that the underside of the floor above which is our living room, is uninsulated, and neither is the duct work which runs through the crawl space including our air returns to the central air system. We have had to put damp rid in there for years because it tends to give a musty smell for whatever reason and I am just so unsure as to what to do about it. Obviously insulation between the crawl and the floor above would improve the homes R value but I don't know if that is proper and would cause wood rot.

@@robsp32 Watch this video again, he is right on with his assessment of crawl spaces. Clean, neat, sealed, conditioned, and well lit. I've been in many hundreds over the last 40+ years so have a pretty good idea of what is going on with them at least in this area of Alaska. Every type from muddy belly slithers you can hardly fit thru to fully decked out play rooms with with carpet and double padding underneath. One of my customers had a full blown HO train set with switching station and controlled lighting so the trains could run off into the darkness and all you could see was the lights of the train, street crossings, and a town in the far distance etc. That was way cool but took time to work around. Do the math on the foundation wall, always less square footage than the floor area above. Spray foam is the best but most expensive altho you can burn up a lot of labor installing sheet goods and end result will probably not be as tight as spray foam. Spray covers 100% and seals all of the nooks, crannies, gaps, cracks and holes. The better it is sealed the less air infiltration / heat loss there will be. In addition there will be fewer places for mice & bugs to hide, breed and travel. There is a foam ground pad available that will provide insulation and vapor barrier but should be laid on a smooth graded surface such as sand to protect the integrity of the barrier. I have only seen the foam ground pad a couple of times, usually in this area we see 6 mil poly visquene on the ground. Sometimes none at all but usually poorly installed with large voids and a musty smell in the space. Later homes with an Energy Rating will have taped or Tremco sealed seams and fiberglass batts stapled or Simplex nailed to the mud sill on the blocks. The floor is left uninsulated unless staple up radiant is installed. Radiated heat from the ducting or hydronic piping keeps the space warm to protect the piping from freezing and keep the floor warm. Some codes allow a fully conditioned space to be heated with the central forced air heat system supply and return air duct openings into the crawl space The concrete floor is nice but not required and usually out of budget. One of my customers did his place that way and bragged about how nice it was. Nice idea but the end result was the surface was so rough a creeper would not roll and it was actually worse to work in than a lot of gravel floored crawls. A really big mistake I see all of the time is non treated lumber used for skirting and installed in direct cotact with the concrete. Other building debris and wood scraps left on uncovered ground or under a loose fitting vapor barrier is another problem. These items deteriorate from the moisture picked up from the ground and provide an environment for molds to grow. For my 2 cents worth a heated properly conditioned crawlspace in a cold climate is much more desirable than an insulated floor. Think of the upstairs floor in a 2 story house, the floor is comfortable from the heat of the floor below. With an insulated floor that is not radiant heated the insulation holds the the cold and the floor feels cooler as it is difficult to get the heat from any source to go down. At least that is what I have observed over the years.

You build the vents by code than seal the vents after inspection

Phil Ward then someone can tear a hole in the grass and steal your PS4 while you’re at work.

When I bought a used home with crawl space in GA , the first thing the seller, and the inspector, told me to do was to keep a dehumidifier running 24/7/365 and repair the encapsulation (moisture barrier). There's evidence of old mold on some joists and subfloor, but no new issues. BTW I also keep sticky bug traps along all the walls down there to reduce bug populations.

Huh? Who said anything bout walking on concrete

I also would love to know what can I do to my crawl space in a double-wide in central FL. I wish so much to make it useable for mold-free storage.