Crawlspace Vents?

kcrossley2 · 02-10-2010, 05:37 PM

I live near Williamsburg on the Virginia Peninsula. This year has been unusually cold with temperatures at or below freezing for much of January and February.

Our home is a 3-story 3,800 SF structure with a crawlspace. There are approximately a dozen vents that help vent the crawlspace area. My question is should I close the crawlspace vents during the cold winter months?

Thanks,
Kelly

itsreallyconc · 02-10-2010, 06:04 PM

as i understand, current code in ga calls for unvented crawl spaces,,, we typically install 20mm vapor barrier & humidistat controll'd exhaust fans ( on 1 side )

warnerww · 02-10-2010, 06:41 PM

IN eastern Washington we use vents (1 square foot of vent per 300 square feet of house). It gets cold here in the winter and we close the vents. But humidity can be a problem in the summer so they need to be open then.

kcrossley2 · 02-11-2010, 03:58 AM

Has anyone tried installing automatic vents?

http://heating-and-cooling.hardwares...ign=googlebase

ARI001 · 02-11-2010, 07:41 AM

Vents should be installed at a ratio of 1 SQFT of vent per 150 SQFT of under floor space, with one vent located within 3' of each corner. Reference section R408.1 and R408.2 of the IRC building codes for more information. You should close the vents when the temperatures drop below 64 degrees. Automatic vents are a great product and are easy to install.