Indiana Crawl Space Encapsulation

Protecting your home against mold growth, wood rot, musty smells, high moisture levels, and high energy cost starts with your crawl space. And the best method to accomplishing this is with a crawl space encapsulation system. Indiana homes that have a vented crawl space can be problematic. Vented crawl spaces can lead to higher than normal moisture levels in your crawl space, which in return can lead to mold growth, wood rot, and musty smells in the living area. This is even more true in the summer months due to the excessive amounts of moisture in the air during hot, humid days. This hot, humid air increases moisture levels in the crawl space and makes it harder to cool your home. A crawl space encapsulation system seals off the crawl space from the outside environment. Creating a clean, healthy, energy saving crawl space. To find out more about crawl space encapsulation systems in Indiana click here or call 317-294-5278 for a free Indiana crawl space encapsulation estimate.

Crawl Space Vapor Barrier in Indianapolis

Homeowners in Indianapolis and surrounding areas that live above a crawl space tend to have many of the same issues concerning their crawl space. One of the more common issues is a damp, musty odor coming from their crawl space and into the living area. A possible solution to this problem is a proper crawl space vapor barrier or a crawl space encapsulation system.
Most Indianapolis crawl spaces have a dirt floor. Moisture, mold spores, and even odors can travel out of the dirt floor and into the living area. This process is often referred to as stack effect. The two best methods of reducing this effect in the living area of the home is either by the installation of a crawl space vapor barrier or a complete crawl space encapsulation system. A crawl space vapor barrier is typically a 6mill plastic that is laid across the entire crawl space dirt floor. This helps in keeping moisture, mold spores, and even odors trapped underneath it, preventing them from traveling with the natural air flow of the home (bottom to top) and into the living areas. Occasionally a crawl space vapor barrier alone may not be enough to eliminate all these issues with moisture, mold spores, and odors. This is due to the fact that a crawl space vapor barrier does not completely seal the crawl space off from the living areas of the home. It simply seals off most of the dirt floor areas of the crawl space, which is better than no vapor barrier at all. To seal off the entire crawl space environment from the living areas, a crawl space encapsulation system is needed. The crawl space encapsulation system will typically be between 12-20 mill thick and will extend up the foundation walls and across the dirt floor. The top edge is then attached and sealed to the foundation walls. This provides a complete seal of moisture, mold spores, and odors in your crawl space, preventing them from coming into the living areas of your home.
If you are experiencing damp, musty odors in the living areas of home, click here or call SwainCo. today for a free inspection and evaluation at 317-294-5278.

A Vapor Barrier Alone May Not Be Enough

When dealing with high levels of moisture coming from a crawl space, a simple 6mill vapor barrier may not be enough to reduces and eliminate those high levels of moisture. Here is a few reasons why. First we have to look at what is causing the high moisture levels in the crawl space. If standing water is an issue than installing a vapor barrier alone would do little if any to help the matter. In fact with out some type of drainage system and a pit/pump, a vapor barrier alone could possibly make things worse by allowing the water to sit on top of the barrier with no where to go but up into the living areas. If standing water is not an issue than more than likely you are getting the unwanted moisture in your crawl space from 3 possible areas. First would be the crawl space dirt floor. Moisture is always constantly coming out the dirt floor ground in you crawl space. This moisture than moves with the nature air flow of the home, which is from bottom to top, or what some refer to as stack effect. Stack effect is the reason we see moisture in the crawl space causing issues in the living area, such as mold, buckled or warped floors and even moisture on the windows. A simple 6mill vapor barrier laid across the entire crawl space floor will help keep moisture from the dirt crawl space floor from getting into your crawl space of the living areas of the home. The moisture is simple somewhat encapsulated under this barrier. But a 6mill vapor barrier is recommended to be installed a few inches away from the walls due to block seepage and it is not a complete seal of the dirt crawl space floor, so there are still areas that moisture may be able to come up through the dirt crawl space floor. Even with a vapor barrier we still have two other areas that moisture is able to get into your crawl space that a simple vapor barrier cannot address. The second area is the foundation walls. Whether they are block, poured, or stone, foundation walls tend to seep moisture. Although most homes built in the last 40 yrs would have some type of waterproof membrane on the exterior side of your foundation, these tend to not last very long. And areas that have a high water table can cause the seepage of moisture through your block walls to increase as well, adding to the unwanted high moisture levels in your crawl space. The last place your crawl space may be getting moisture from is your vents. Although they were intended to help keep you crawl space dry, they may in fact be doing the exact opposite. Consider this, on a hot humid day in the middle of the summer when your vents are to be open, the outside air has a large amount of moisture in it. When that air comes into your crawl space through vents your simply bringing all that moisture in with it. Not to mention if you have duct work in your crawl space this hot humid air is going to make them and pipes as well sweat, thus creating even more unwanted moisture in your crawl space. So to address all these areas that moisture comes from in your crawl space a simple 6mill vapor barrier may not be enough. The only sure way to permanently seal this outside moisture from getting into your crawl space would be a crawl space encapsulation system. To see more information on permanent crawl space solutions such as an encapsulation system visit www.swaincollc.com