Crawl Space Insulation

Winter is here, and now is the time to start considering how best to insulate your crawl space. Especially if you are having issues with cold floors and cold rooms. A very common practice with Indiana crawl spaces is to use fiberglass insulation between the floor joist in the crawl space. Depending on the amount of water or moisture your crawl space gets, fiberglass insulation can sometimes do more harm than good. If your crawl space tends to get large amounts of water or moisture, fiberglass insulation will tend to work like a sponge. As the moisture rises with the natural air flow of the home (stack effect) it is absorbed in the fiberglass insulation. This will make the insulation much heavier allowing for a better chance of the fiberglass insulation to fall from the floor joist onto the crawl space floor. Moisture being trapped in the insulation also raises the concern for increased chance or wood rot. This is because the moisture is trapped in the insulation that is installed between your floor joist, increasing the moisture content of those floor joist. If your crawl space has very low amounts of water or moisture, than fiberglass insulation in the floor joist can be effective. Another form of insulation used commonly in Indiana crawl spaces is spray foam insulation. Spray foam insulation can be effective, but only if done on the foundation walls and not the structure wood elements. Spray foam insulation installed on the structure wood elements will allow moisture to be trapped between the spray foam and the structure wood. This will increase the chance of wood rot by a great amount. It will also make it very difficult to replace if it does rot because the spray foam will have to be removed. Foam board insulation on the foundation walls is a very good type of insulation to use in the crawl space. This type of insulation can be installed directly on the foundation walls. The seams can also be sealed with a waterproof tape. For more information on crawl space insulation or to find out if your crawl space needs insulation visit www.swaincollc.com or call 317-828-7897