My former house had a wet crawlspace, but no flowing water.

I covered the dirt with some fairly thick plastic (also called VisQueen for
some reason). Any 'joints' were overlapped by at least 2 feet and I did
place some loose dirt to hold the plastic down, as I did use the crawl for
some limited storage.

Another thing I did was to install foundation vents on the east side, as
there were 3 vents existing on the south. That house was near ground level
on the front with a partial walk-out basement to the rear. The vents I
installed were the thermostatic ones that open and close according to the
air temp in the crawl. I should have installed a couple on the north
(uphill) side, but the way I had the landscaping prevented that.

All this reduced the moisture in the crawl to pretty good levels.

As my handle suggests, I do heating and air for a living. I am in and out
of crawlspaces a lot. I've seen thermostatically and humidistat controlled
attic gable vents in crawls. The best thing I can tell you is to make sure
the dirt is covered and you have good ventilation. You also need to
re-landscape to keep the flowing water out of the crawlspace.


"johnnymo" wrote in message
oups.com...

Ok crawlspace gurus.....

I just bought my first house for a pretty good deal (I think), but the
crawl space needs work. It is an older 1968 ranch house located in
Atlanta with about a 3 to 4 foot crawlspace. I noticed the crawlspace
was kind of moist when I bought it, but I recently did some work on one
of my bathrooms and had the complete bathroom floor pulled up down to
the joists and noticed that on heavy rains (recent effects of FL
hurricanes), water is just flowing in like a slow creek. How did I see
the water...b/c I don't have a vapor barrier either. So the water is my
first issue, but I don't want to put a vapor barrier before getting the
water to stop.

Second issue: Venting? I have some vents that have been blocked off by
the previous owners (piece of sheet metal or something). Not all of the
vents are blocked though. So, what is the rule of thumb for this. Are
there certain vents you block due to the direction they are facing?
Should I block them all? Block during certain seasons?

I had a crawlspace "expert" give me an estimate of $10,000 to cover
1000 sq feet of crawlspace. I politely declined his offer....

Any suggestions on steps to improving my crawlspace?