WHY are crawl spaces vented?

DID YOU KNOW?

There is not one single shred of evidence or science that says vented dirt crawl spaces make sense. 

There is a TON of evidence and science that says that vented crawl spaces are a SERIOUS problem, yet over 250,000 new homes and thousands of additions are built each year with dirt crawl spaces. 

The building code not only allows dirt crawl spaces but actually made the problem worse by requiring them to be vented. 

The NUMBER ONE problem with vented crawl spaces is MOISTURE. Moisture is a problem because combined with the organic materials used to build your home, ie, wood it causes MOLD AND ROT. 

Moisture comes from two place: the ground and the outdoor air. Exposed earth contributes a lot of water vapor into the crawl space air. The earth is damp and that dries underneath your house and the water vapor moves up into your house and you breathe that air. 

Water also gets into the crawl space from entering under the footing, through block walls, and cracks in poured concrete. It seeps in and just lays there in puddles slowly evaporating upward into the house. 

Depending on the temperature outside, most of us are venting our crawl spaces with hot dry air, cold wet air, and every temperature in between. This causes us to spend 15%-25% more on our energy bills than we would if the crawl space was a vapor barrier and not vented. 

Some people might think that none of this matters because you never go down into the crawl space and the fact of the matter is that you are breathing the crawl space air regardless of whether or not you go down there. The air travels up to all parts of the house and if you have mold spores, radon and a mixture of sorts then that is the air that you and your family are breathing. 

The good news is that we understand the science behind vented crawl spaces and we have a team of experts that are willing to help you understand too! We have a system called Clean Space that makes your crawl space a vapor barrier and prevents the problems of mold and rot that vapor intrusion causes. 

*The information in this YouBlog is brought to you by "Crawl Space Science: What to Have Done...and Why" by Lawrence Janesky