What Problems Can Uncovered Crawl Space Vents Cause?

If you leave your crawl space vents uncovered, you could face a number of issues. First and foremost, heavy rain could lead to flooding in your crawl space. Even if you avoid flooding, you could face problems with dampness, mold, and pests as a result of leaving your crawl space vents uncovered. Common problems caused by uncovered crawl space vents include: 

• Dampness and Humidity 

By letting water into your crawl space, crawl space vents actually increase humidity, which can lead to a number of problems, including damage to your support joists. While the most obvious cause of dampness and humidity in an unsealed crawl space is heavy rainfall and flooding, the most common is actually a little more insidious than that.

Condensation occurs most often in the summer when warm, moist air hits the cool surfaces in your crawl space. This can cause a huge increase in humidity as well as allowing for the formation of mold and mildew in your crawl space. Over time, this humidity and the mold spores will travel into your house as air circulates through your HVAC system, causing more widespread issues. 

• Structural Damage

Excessive and prolonged dampness can cause a lot of issues, but the most worrying is structural damage to your floors and the wooden joists that support them. Wood is extremely susceptible to dampness unless treated, and when it is exposed to prolonged periods of dampness and humidity, this can cause it to start rotting. Rotten wooden joists are a serious issue for any home. 

As wood rots, it becomes soft. This means it loses its ability to support the structure of your property and can start to bend or even crumble. Likewise, your wooden floorboards could begin to sag and warp, partly as a result of their own reaction to dampness, and partly because of damage to the joists that support them. The most noticeable sign of this kind of damage is a feeling of springiness or bouncing underfoot when you tread on affected flooring.