It is a common misconception that only damp crawl spaces can benefit from crawl space encapsulation. The reality is that any home with a crawl space can achieve several advantages by having this home improvement performed. Here are some reasons why you should consider crawl space encapsulation if your home was built with a crawl space rather than a basement.
● Moisture – Even if your home’s crawl space is so well ventilated that it stays dry most of the time, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some degree of moisture at certain times. Installing a vapor barrier ensures that interior humidity levels aren’t elevated at any point. Higher humidity means your air conditioner has to work harder, resulting in higher cooling costs and a shorter life of the equipment.
● Indoor air quality – Your home shares air with the outside environment through any gap that is present. It is unlikely that without crawl space encapsulation that you aren’t getting various contaminants inside your home that are adversely affecting indoor air quality.
● Pests – Pests are drawn by moist conditions of a damp crawl space and then venture into your home. Ongoing pest control services are more effective when you have crawl space encapsulation performed to reduce pests from entering your home through the crawl space. Rodents are also drawn to a dark, damp crawl space and can be very damaging to your home with their nesting and chewing.
● Storage – Chances are you can’t store anything in your home’s crawl space right now, but you might be able to after crawl space encapsulation depending on how much space there is.
Since you will have accomplished all these benefits with crawl space encapsulation, keep in mind that any prospective buyers will notice they can too, so doing this project can improve the value of your home and make it more appealing should you ever decide to put it on the market.
