The Fallacies Of Venting Crawl Spaces

Must You Vent Your Crawl House?

Fallacy #4 – Venting will reduce crawl space moisture levels. Venting will only assist cut back crawl house moisture ranges when the outside air is dryer than crawl area air, or when enough sizzling outdoors air enters and warms the crawl house. Outside air in the summer may very well comprise extra moisture than crawl house air, and will make the situation worse, not higher. In winter, venting will assist dry a crawl space, typically to a detrimental extreme. In actuality, venting will only assist reduce crawl area moisture levels when the outside air is dryer than crawl area air, or when sufficient scorching exterior air enters and warms the crawl space. Almost 70% of the houses in South Carolina have crawl area foundations.

So venting a 70F/one hundred% RH crawl area with 85F/60% RH air will not remove moisture. Foundation venting can be so simple as turning a cinder-block on its facet so the interior holes function a breeze-means between the outside air and the crawlspace. However, quick-fix methods similar to this do not carry out on the same stage as professionally designed vents. As I said earlier, vents ought to be able to open and shut, both automatically or manually, because the air temperature dictates and must be impervious to undesirable animals.

The greatest solution is to have the crawl area encapsulated using a thick vapor barrier. This barrier will must be adhered to the muse walls with glue and all the seams taped.

Should I Close The Vents To My Crawl Area Within The Winter?

Closing Crawl Area Vents In The Winter

Since the cooling air must get rid of some moisture quickly it seeks out cool surfaces to deposit the moisture on. Lucky for the cooling air, your cool flooring joists and ductwork are ready and out there to receive all the moisture that the air needs to dump. With this in thoughts, crawl space encapsulation will NOT work without closed vents. The complete system is in jeopardy if your crawl area isn’t sealed off from the surface air correctly. Open vents create high levels of moisture, condensation, and humidity that will be detrimental to your home’s foundation. Our mortgage, pest management and residential inspection industries flag crawl house wood moisture contents above 20% as a potential drawback.

If you shut the vents in your crawl space, you're truly maintaining the dry air out. If you open your crawl space vents in the summertime, you are actually permitting extra humidity into your crawl space and creating an surroundings conducive to mould development. The actuality is that the vents do not flow into sufficient air in the summer to decrease the humidity underneath the house. The vents are a throwback to really ventilated crawlspace - like a home on stilts. The first house suspected they were having issues when their amazingly beautiful hardwood flooring started to cup.

I see drawback-free crawl spaces with wooden moisture contents of sixteen%. A wooden moisture content of 16% relates to air at about eighty% RH. The dew level temperature of a crawl space at 75F/eighty% RH is about 68F. Why in the world would I need to vent this crawl area with air that has a dew level temperature near 75F? The result shall be condensation on all of the cool surfaces in the crawl space.

• Excess moisture in crawl spaces has also been related to contributing to increased power consumption.
• So our answer is to open and close the vents in your crawlspace seasonally, as a substitute of deciding to seal off crawl house vents altogether.
• This consciousness led to studies demonstrating that closed crawl areas, insulated spaces without vents to the surface, can significantly enhance moisture control and provide vitality savings.
• In the summer season, introducing warm outdoors air under the house contributes to heat gains, rising cooling loads.
• Ventilation of a crawl area to control relative humidity solely works persistently in an arid climate.
• Wintertime air flow cools the crawl house contributing to warmth loss from the house.

CleanSpace supplies a vent cover that attaches mechanically to form an hermetic bond. Installing a vapor barrier will totally seal and encapsulate your crawl area. Let’s assume that you’re reading this text as a result of you could have a crawl space and you’re asking yourself the question, “Should crawl space vents be open or closed?

When To Close Crawl House Vents

If you're unsatisfied with your existing setup, there are numerous methods to either improve it or convert it to a closed space. However, there's far more to converting a crawl area than simply closing the vents.

Foundation Vents Could Also Be Inflicting More Hurt To Your Crawl Space Than You Notice

First and foremost, open vents allow moisture to enter your crawl house. This creates the right setting for mildew progress and mildew.