Sealing crawl space


  #1  
Old 07-13-17, 02:04 PM
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Sealing crawl space

My house is over a half basement, half crawl space. The part of the house over the crawl space constantly smells like the crawl space, kind of wet and musty. I've been reading about the "stack effect" and how it can cause this. thinking of putting a vapor barrier over the dirt and sealing off the vents. I sealed the inside of the block walls a few years ago with two coats of drylock. If I do the vapor barrier, can I seal it to the block walls (since they are technically already sealed) instead of coming all the way up to the floor joists? Whats a good method of sealing the vents? Would you recommend a particular barrier? I've seen 6 mil up to like 20 mil.

Thanks,
Dan
 
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Old 07-13-17, 02:06 PM
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By all means cover that dirt with a vapor barrier.

Vented crawlspaces are common in the south, I would start with the VB.
 
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Old 07-15-17, 09:32 AM
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I am not sure if this will be of much use for you since I am not an expert on the subject, but I will give the information anyway. We recently had our crawl space encapsulated and the contractor gave the options of a 10 mil barrier and a 12 mil reinforced barrier. They said that they never used a 20 mil barrier because it can be difficult to work with and that the 12 mil barrier is sufficient as long as you are not storing items in the crawl space. It is always possible that that the contractor was trying to get away with using cheaper materials, but they seemed knowledgeable and honest (they were one of the top rated companies in our area).
 
 

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