Clean Crawl Space

If you don’t make a point of dropping into your crawl space on a regular basis, you may not know when it’s in need of cleaning. Annual crawl space inspections make it easier to keep track of your crawl space’s status, but you can still duck down every now and then yourself to determine whether or not it may need sprucing. 

Signs to Watch For 

That said, your crawl space will also let you know if it needs cleaning. You can keep an eye out for certain signs that make their way into the rest of your home to determine whether or not it’s time to give your crawl space a once-over. 

Symptoms you’ll want to keep an eye out for can include: 

• Warping door and window frames. The doors and windows throughout your home are especially sensitive to damage. If you don’t make a point of ensuring your home’s overall health, then it may become more difficult to secure your doors and windows in place. The good news – if it can be called as such – is that if you notice your doors and windows sticking, you can head down into your crawl space to determine if damage therein may be giving your home trouble. 
• Unpleasant smells throughout your home.  While unpleasant smells in your home may not seem like the worst thing in the world to contend with, the persistent presence of those smells can make your home less comfortable to live in. Luckily, you can often trace those smells back to their source, at which point you can more readily clean out the damage in your crawl space. 

• Seepage or other signs of water damage. Water damage is always difficult to contend with. Most porous materials can absorb all manner of water that makes its way into your home. Unfortunately, furniture, wood, and even cement can begin to falter structurally when that water sets in deep. Water in your porous materials can not only ruin precious belongings, but it can also compromise the overall structural integrity of your home. The only silver lining that comes with seepage and home water damage is that you’ll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s time to clear out your crawl space. 
• Mold. Mold does not get into your home via moisture, be it liquid or gaseous in form. Instead, mold gets into your home via air currents. If there is a mold cluster beneath your home or in your crawl space, those spores will have more ready access to your HVAC system. Once they begin to circulate through your home, it can be nearly impossible to get them out without replacing or deep cleaning your HVAC system. However, if you spot mold when cleaning out your crawl space, you can prevent it from spreading not only within that space but throughout the rest of your home. 

You’ll want to clean your crawl space for the same reasons that you clean the rest of your home. A dirty crawl space can negatively impact your overall quality of life within your space. The longer you leave your crawl space dirty, the more likely it is that the mess will obscure signs of water damage or other structural failures. When you keep your crawl space clean, however, you can avoid losing value on your home or otherwise compromising your family’s health.  

When you clean out your crawl space, you’re doing more than making the space itself a little less cluttered. The benefits of cleaning out your crawl space include: 

Lowered Risk of Structural Damage Throughout Your Home 

Protecting your crawl space and ensuring that it stays clean isn’t about what the crawl space visually looks like. Instead, a clean crawl space protects the rest of your home from unexpected forms of damage. 

When you clean your crawl space, you prevent: 

• Foundation Damage. Water that gets into your crawl space can easily travel down into your foundation. The kind of foundation damage a leaking crawl space puts you at risk for can cost you a pretty penny—all the more reason, then, to keep your crawl space dry and clean. 
• Flooding. The last thing you want to find when coming down to clean your crawl space is standing water. If you clean your crawl space on a biweekly basis, however, you’ll be able to spot the signs of a leak in advance and reach out to the applicable professionals for help. 

• Mold Spores. If your crawl space is damp, it’s going to be a haven for mold. Clean your crawl space and dry it out with a dehumidifier if you want to keep mold spores from taking root alongside your belongings. 
• Infestations. If water can get into your home, so can insects and other critters. When you clean your crawl space and point out any leaks to a professional contractor, you’ll not only be eliminating a source of water damage but also a source of infestation. 
• Unpleasant Smells Throughout Your Home. Want to get rid of the musty smell in your home, but aren’t sure where to start? Head down into your crawl space. Unfortunately, the smell of dampness rooted here travels upward and fills the whole of your home. While some air fresheners can cover the scent up, you’ll need to get your hands dirty if you want to reclaim your space. 
• Damaged Insulation. Thermal insulation is a great temporary waterproofing measure in addition to a temperature control barrier. However, if you don’t keep an eye on it while cleaning your crawl space, you risk it becoming a hotbed for mold reproduction or animal nesting. 

Better Budgeting for The Future 

Not only will cleaning out your crawl space help preserve the overall integrity of your home, but it can also be a boon for your wallet. 

When you make a point to ensure that your crawl space remains clean, you can: 

• Improve Your Home’s Market Value. If you want to sell your home, you’re going to need to ensure that it’s in the best shape possible before you put it on the market. One of the ways you can get the most value out of your home is to keep the crawl space clean. A dirty crawl space that’s led to foundation cracks or crawl space leaks can cost you up to 30 percent of your home’s value. 
• Save Money on Repairs. The sooner you’re able to respond to a problem in your crawl space, the less money repairs are going to cost you. The best way to spot the kinds of problems that demand expensive repairs is to clean your crawl space consistently. 
• Save Money on Your Bills. If you leave your crawl space unattended, you may not be able to stay on top of pipe leaks or cracks. As a result, you may notice your electric, heating, or water bill spiking for seemingly no reason. If you want to better track the changes in your home, keep your crawl space clean. This way, you can reach out for professional guidance if you see a problem developing that you don’t know how to treat. 

Crawl spaces insulated with the correct material do two important things: maintain cleanliness within your space and save energy. 

Keeping Your Crawl Space Clean 

As mentioned, it’s important to keep your crawl space clean if you want to stay ahead of any potential damage to your home. A clean crawl space, after all, is a crawl space that’s less likely to take on moisture. 

Insulation, like the synthetic insulation material, ExTremeBloc™, keeps your home temperature-controlled and prevents mold or rot from growing and spreading. This type of insulation creates a physical and chemical barrier between your home and the outdoors, making it significantly more difficult for water as a liquid or a gas to make its way into your crawl space. 

Cutting Your Energy Bills 

Insulation also helps keep the temperature within your crawl space more consistent. This is a boon not only for your energy bills but for the overall structural integrity of your home and crawl space, as well. 

The colder it gets in your home, the more likely your pipes are to develop leaks. Similarly, any water that gets absorbed into your supports will freeze should the temperatures in your crawl space drop below freezing. Frozen water can expand to be up to nine percent larger than its normal size, meaning your supports can develop cracks and other damage much more rapidly than they would if temperatures within your crawl space were more consistent. In short, crawl space insulation prevents the kind of crawl space damage that might put your home at risk and cost you a significant amount of money to repair. 

When it comes to cleaning out your crawl space, you want to know that you’re working with experienced experts. Foundation Recovery Systems specializes in offering cleaning crawl space services. You can benefit from the following: 

Repair and Recovery 

More often than not, you can trace crawl space damage and debris to some manner of failure on a structural level. The good news is that you are under no obligation to try and attend to that damage on your own. 

Instead, you can continue to work with area experts to bring your crawl space back up to snuff. You can examine your crawl space with professional guidance and determine what structures may have suffered damage and, in turn, what entities within that space may be in need of repairs. Then you can see those repairs through, whether they require something as simple as replacing a joist or something as complex as a foundation repour. 

New Installations 

With the source of damage in your crawl space squared away, contractors can then help you drain any standing water and invest in those waterproofing measures that may best suit the space. Because each crawl space is highly individual, you’ll have an opportunity to look over a free installation quote to determine which of Foundation Recovery Systems’ available solutions may suit your home best. 

When it comes to waterproofing and protecting your crawl space, you can rely on any of the following systems: 

• Interior drains 
• Sump pumps 
• Full space encapsulation with a vapor barrier 
• Waterproof insulation