Why Protecting Your Crawl Space is Important - Oregon City, OR
Challenge
Keeping your crawl space dry and healthy is important in order to maintain a healthy home. If the crawl space isn't in good condition this creates high risks of mold growth, wood rooting, and poor air quality in the living spaces. Big indicators that your crawl space needs some improvements is water intrusion, falling fiberglass insulation, and rodent activity. At John's Waterproofing we want to ensure every homeowner feels safe and that begins by making sure the crawl space is dry and we can do that with encapsulation.
Solution
Encapsulation is the process of sealing the earth off from the home and creating barriers so that nothing can get inside. By doing this, it helps regulate the environment in the space and prevent mold, rot, and deterring rodents. When beginning an encapsulation, we first remove everything. That means taking out the damaged vapor barrier and sagging insulation. This provides a fresh start so we can install a drainage system. Our drainage system involves digging a trench along the interior perimeter of the crawl space and laying a perforated pipe in a silt sock. This pipe can collect unwanted water intrusion and offers a safe passageway for it to flow through instead of flooding into the space. Then, we connect that perforated pipe to a SuperSump Plus sump pump. This pump system is capable of taking all that collected water and safely pushes it out of the crawl space and away from the homes foundation through a discharge line. Once the drainage system is installed, then we can lay down TerraBlock. This is a thick insulation foam that goes along the base of the crawl space to seal the earth off. It helps to insulate and control the environment. It also helps the home become more energy efficient because the heating/cooling systems won't have to work as hard to keep up with the changing climate. On top of the TerraBlock, we install a CleanSpace vapor barrier. This is a 20 mil thick liner that goes along the base, up the foundation walls, and between the footing and wooden posts. Its function is to be able to keep water from seeping through and into the space. A SaniDry dehumidifier is installed to help filter the air by pulling out excess moisture. Spray Foam gets applied along the foundation walls as a final air sealant and insulator. This entire encapsulation process helps to keep the crawl space dry and healthy so that the homeowners can enjoy an overall healthy home.
