Encapsulated Crawl Space??

[Nick]

At a home & garden show today, I saw a number of vendors pushing their encapsulated crawl space, mostly CleanSpace brand. In some ways it sounds attractive but they claim you need no vents and no dehumidifier. It seems to me that with no air movement there will be inevitable humidity build up due to small leaks, air conditioning ducts etc. and that the mold problem could be increased rather than eliminated (dark, moist, little to no air movement).

Does anyone have experience with these? Good or bad experiences? If so, how long has it been installed?

[tbasc]

Look at The Building Science Corporation web site. This is * researched * informaition. As a practicing architect, I refer to this information. Your local climante has a lot to do with wheather or not this is a useful approach. TB

[Doug Kanter]

Nice site. I'm gonna be up all night. Thanks a lot. :-)

[Art]

There was a government study that said this worked better than ventilated spaces since ventilation lets warm humid air in and water condenses out under the house. You need a good french drain system for it to work properly.

[NoSpam99989]

[Stretch]

I am an AC contractor and about 20% of my business is crawlspace encapsulation. I started doing it based on my own research long before I ever heard the term encapsulation. I even had an article published on it in an HVAC trade journal.

Here is a link to my article on Crawlspace problems

It is kind of technical, but I hope it helps. email me at sixfoot7 at sccoast dot net if you have any questions. Note: if you live in a desert, ventillation works better, most anywhere else, encapsulation is better.

Stretch

[Stretch]

OOPS! SORRY! They changed the link. Try this instead:

Stretch