Residential Crawl Space Insulation

The crawl space under the floor of a home is a ticking time bomb of potential problems. That short, basement-like space with the dirt floor that many homeowners would rather forget is in many instances a welcome home to moisture-loving pests like carpenter ants and termites as well as health-jeopardizing problems like molds, mildews and soil gases.

Crawl spaces are often damp, humid spaces due to water runoff from rain, irrigation systems or an elevated water table. While the building code requires crawl space ventilation, this ventilation does virtually nothing to mitigate moisture problems and can actually make moisture problems worse.

Houses operate like chimneys. If you introduce a hole at the bottom of a chimney, a natural draft ensues as air exits the top of the chimney. This is called stack effect. Attic ventilation is the top of the chimney and crawl space ventilation is the bottom. As air is drawn up through your house, moisture, mold spores, odors and soil gases from the crawl space find their way into the living space.

In the Total Encapsulation method, we spray foam directly to the underside of the floor’s surfaces. It is a "top down" type of treatment.

We remove all old, hanging fiberglass insulation since it will act as a ‘wick’ for moisture between the ground and sub-floor. Each cavity is sprayed with between 2" & 3" closed-cell foam as is the band. Foam is sprayed on joists and sub floor surfaces to encapsulate the entire sub-floor system. Foaming the sub-floor & joists at over 200 degrees kills all active mold and mold spores on contact.

Once sprayed, air and moisture is eliminated which is essential in mold’s survival. Mold does not grow on closed-cell foam; therefore, this process results in a clean, healthy crawl space which is impervious to future out-breaks of mold while providing excellent insulation for your floor.