How Do Cold Temperatures Pose a Threat to Crawl Spaces?

Your crawl space might not make up much of your home’s square footage, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need its own kind of TLC. During the warmer months of the year, hydrostatic pressure serves as one of the most effective forces to work against your crawl space’s structural integrity. Unfortunately, as the weather cools down, the moisture that causes so many problems for you in the spring and summer can worsen with the winter. 

Come the coldest months of the year, any moisture that’s been absorbed in your walls or structural supports can expand to be over nine percent larger than it normally is. This means that the damage your crawl space may end up contending with will be much worse and will get out of control much faster. Some of the most common forms of damage to see in a crawl space without winterization protections include: 

• Icy walls 
• Sagging floors 
• Bowing walls 

• Rusting floor and rim joists 
• Standing water or frozen puddles 
• Warping door and window frames 
• Fogged windows 

Winter Water Damage and Your Home’s Market Value 

As mentioned, a damp crawl space in the winter can cause serious problems for your home’s overall structural integrity. There’s more to your problems, however, than a damp, cracking, or otherwise damaged crawl space. The longer you take to fix up a damaged crawl space or to protect your home from winter weather, the more likely it is that the stack effect will direct moisture up into the rest of your home, where it can cause comparable damage. 

This is a problem in terms of comfort and your home’s future value. If you want to put your home on the market at some point in the near future, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve done as much as you can to keep that unwanted moisture out of your crawl space. If you let water damage spread over an extended period of time, then you risk losing up to 30 percent of your home’s market value—especially if you don’t choose to invest in repairs. 

Water Damage and Your Family’s Health 

Your family’s immune systems are already weaker than they normally are during the coldest months of the year. The last thing you want to do is make yourself more vulnerable to sickness by exposing yourself to unsafe living conditions. Unfortunately, the same stack effect that can devalue your home can also put your family’s health at risk. Unwanted moisture can aggravate some parties’ pre-existing conditions, eliciting allergic reactions, or respiratory issues. Even folks without pre-existing conditions can start to develop allergies or related conditions if exposed to crawl space moisture for an extended period of time. 

While it is more difficult for mold to take root in your crawl space during the coldest months of the year, it is still possible for new sprouts to grow. While moisture can exacerbate your family’s current health conditions, mold can bring new ones about in even the healthiest members of your family. If you’re not careful about removing mold from your home, you and your family members may find yourselves contending with conditions ranging from persistent coughs to long-term respiratory problems for years to come, even after you’ve invested in any necessary home repairs.