Venturing into the world of Southern Crawl Space Homes (floors, roof, foundation)
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As a "Yankee" moving into my very first southern home with a crawl space, what advice can you give me regarding crawl spaces in general? In my old world, all homes had large basements.
During my home and pest inspections, the men crawling under there in full body suits kept egging me on trying to get me to go under with them while they laughed, joking about spiders
Does any sort of annual pest control need to be done under a crawl space to avoid creating a spider breeding factory in there? Can I toss a pyretherin (sp?) bomb under there a few times a year?
I was told that termite prevention is very important in the south. How do you handle it with your home?
The moisture reading was high under there when they did the inspection, but it was during a very rainy period. A prior inspection had normal readings. Should I replace the solid wooden door with a screened or mesh door to provide air circulation.
This particular home is over 100 years old btw. It has had spray foam insulation applied to the underside of all floors in the last few years during a complete renovation.
Anything else that needs to be done? How do you maintain your crawl space?
what advice can you give me regarding crawl spaces in general?
Avoid the ones that are too shallow.
Whatever advantage they have over slab is lost when too shallow.
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During my home and pest inspections, the men crawling under there in full body suits
kept egging me on trying to get me to go under with them while they laughed, joking about spiders
Yeah, like those.
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In my old world, all homes had large basements.
My southern home has one. Find one for yourself.
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This particular home is over 100 years old btw.
Find another house.
Even if it didn't have the spray on insulation in the floor joists...
having an old house is worse than having a boat.
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The moisture reading...
Crawl space insulation and vapor barrier work is a dark art.
Last edited by MrRational; 10-27-2013 at 09:52 AM..
Avoid the ones that are too shallow.
Whatever advantage they have over slab is lost when too shallow.
Yeah, like those.
My southern home has one. Find one for yourself.
Find another house.
Crawl space insulation and vapor barrier work is a dark science.
Won't find another one. I love historic homes and this one has had a 100% detailed renovation done right. The quality craftsmanship, high ceilings, and woodwork cannot be beat. It was essentially gutted and professionally rebuilt while preserving the historical features. I personally walked through the 3+ hour detailed home inspection and it passed with flying colors, especially for a historic home.
The crawl space is not shallow, it's jacked up quite high.
We purposely tried to avoid homes with basements, since we don't care for them. Plus dealing with indoor spiders and potential moisture issues and flooding is always a gamble when buying a home with a basement. This house went the opposite direction, and the lack of basement was replaced with a renovated attic level instead.
There are many good sources of informations about making sound decisions about what works and what does not when it comes to maintenance and rehabilitation of older homes. Go to a library (often of a community college...) that has a good collection of magazines like Fine Homebuilding or Journal of Light Construction and then use the indexes to track changes in the thinking. Better residential architects also stay on top of these issues.
Insects are attracted to warmth and moisture -- efforts to control both are money well spent! Once moisture makes the initial intrusrion into your crawl space it is quickly followed by insects, vermin and a whole raft of rapidly escalation deterioration.
The smartest investment in such situations is often grading the lot to ensure water flows away from the structure. Without first ensuring that water is not quickly draining off the site no amount of ventilation is going to keep the crawl free of problems. Heck cheap, simple improvements like a nice insect and vermin hostile layer of fine gravel and clearing vegeation from the perimeter can often be far more cost effective than costly efforts to put down concrete or lay in French drains...
Insect control starts with having an understanding of why a crawl space is attractive to bugs -- spiders prey on other insects. If the crawl space is dry and free of the sources of food / protection that smaller bugs like then spiders will not hang out there either. Allow a the crawl to be teaming with bugs you cannot even see that thrive in moist conditions and no matter how many times the Orkin Man is out to spray you'll always be fighting nature...
Make sure that the vents into the crawl space are covered with mesh or have slits/holes small enough that animals cannot get under the house where they can do damage. Animals that like to hide in the crawl space include mice, feral cats, snakes. They love having the shelter and warmth in the winter especially.
When I bought my house, it didn't have rain gutters.
The inspector I hired said that should be the first thing to do in solving crawl space moisture problems
Unless the home has a flat roof I have found that pretty much every residential structure benefits from gutters. Of course those gutters have to be kept CLEAN and the downspouts have to dump water far enough from the structure to keep the foundation dry, but those are pretty basic...
I did a survey of the surrounding neighborhood and noticed that none of the homes have gutters. This is also new to me, as all northern homes do have them as far as I know. The home sits on the highest elevation street in the region, but the moisture reading was taken during that horrific, soggy, never ending monsoon rain that the east was hit with all spring and summer.
The inspectors did beg me to keep it closed up and to keep cats out from under there. According to them, tomcat spray under crawl spaces makes that part of their job miserable
Should I replace the wooden door with mesh to allow more air in?
What about tossing some sort of spider bomb under there each year? Anyone do this?
Rule of thumb - if something has lasted 100 years as is, think twice about any major changes. You could be introducing MORE moisture in by allowing air exchange. Hot muggy southern summer - cool earth floor = the same sweat that is on your Dr. Pepper but under the house.
Spiders - eh. They do a job. Crickets and other insects can be bigger problems if you remove spiders.
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Yep, another easy fix..
