How to Install Vinyl Crawl Space Skirting

As most experienced mobile homeowners know, the crawl space under a mobile home is a favorite hiding place for animals such as skunks, rodents, and neighborhood dogs who sometimes like to drag dead animals into hidden places. Because of problems like this, some mobile home owners would like to keep animals and even children from entering this space. As a mobile home owner, you can install a vinyl skirt around your mobile home that will accomplish that end. All you will need are tools, materials, and installation suggestions you'll find below.

Step 1 - Install the Skirt's Bottom Rail

Mark a line on the ground around your mobile home that defines the base where your bottom rail will be placed. You can draw this line by driving a stake into the ground directly under each corner of your mobile home. Then tie a string to one of the stakes and run the string around the outside of the other three stakes as close to the ground as possible. Tie the end of the string to the stake where you began. Pull the string taut before you tie it. Now you have a line around mobile home that you can use as a guide to install your bottom rail.

Step 2 - Attach the Back Top Rail

Follow the string you have set up as your boundary until you have located the highest point of ground. At that point, attach the back top rail to the mobile home with a screw. Be sure the bottom of the rail is flush with the bottom of the mobile home. Then continue around the mobile home and attach the remainder of the back top rail to it.

Step 3 - Install Your Panels

Return to the stake where you first attached your string. Measure the distance from the ground to the back top rail's bottom edge. Cut a panel section, making it 1-inch longer than the distance between ground and the bottom edge of top rail.

Insert the panel into the bottom rail. Continue around the mobile home, using this same procedure. At each corner of the mobile home, you can bend the panel around the mobile home corner by first scoring the panel, then bending it to fit the corner. Finally, attach the last section by inserting a screw through both section pieces.

Step 4 - Install the Top Rail Cover

Snap the top rail cover into place on the top back rail. Be careful to avoid placing the ends of the top rail covers against each other. Doing so will prevent these covers from buckling or bulging when they become heated and expand. Use this same procedure to attach the top rail covers completely around the mobile home. At each corner of the mobile home, cut a 1-inch notch in the rail cover's top edge. This last step, along with a slight scoring on the cover's back surface, will make it easier to bend the cover.