Crawl Space Issues

Mike Rynearson

Can someone please give me some advise? We have a crawl space that is very wet and is starting to smell like mildew. The floor is sand, on top of earth. We have 2 air vents in the crawl space and the humidity is up to 86%. I've also started noticing some white mold on some of the floor joists AND there is black mold at the bottom of the only support beam in there.

I've read a few articles about drying out crawl spaces and they give 2 completely different ways of accomplishing this. One way is to add a sump pump, a dehumidifier, a metal jack to replace the support beam that is decaying, completely blocking the 2 vents that are there, then wrap the entire area so the mold won't spread. This way is VERY costly.

Another way was suggested to just add automatic vent fans that would turn on automatically when the humidity got too high, then turn off automatically when it was more under control. They also suggest using a metal jack to take on the support of the decaying beam, and also suggested to wrap the entire area after you add the fans. This way is much more reasonable, but I'm so confused about which way is the right way to take care of this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

joecaption

#1 Go back and add your location to your profile.
Need pictures of this beam.
Just proping it up is almost never a good idea.
Unless you have about a 10' X 10' house you have no where enough ventalation.
Those vent do not even need any power they use a bimetal strip to open and close.

Could also use a picture of the outside of the home. front and back.
Things that can cause this are, no gutters, no grade that runs away from the house, grade to low under the house, no vaper barrier on the ground under the house.

If you think the needed repairs are expencive wait until you let it go to long.
The fungus that's growing eats what holds the wood fibers together.
I've seen it get to the point you could snap off the floor joist in your hands.

At this point the least I would do is treat all the bare wood with Timbor.

Windows on Wash

Post this over in the Insulation forum as well as your location.

You will get all the information that you need over there.

In the end, you will probably want to seal up the crawl and condition it. Make sure that the grading is right and you are getting rid of the bulk moisture.

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