Photo Album: Encapsulating a Gloucester, VA Crawl Space

A homeowner in Gloucester, Virginia called us out to evaluate their crawl space moisture problems after they had a home inspector investigate underneath their home. We sent out a well-trained Home performance Advisor to inspect the state of the crawl space. We found that there were numerous amounts of damp fiberglass insulation batts falling out of the floor joists in large chunks. There was also a great amount of mold and mildew growth along those wooden floor joists. Both of these issues suggest a high relative humidity within the crawl space. Upon further investigation, we noticed that the liner originally installed over the dirt floor was deteriorating and missing in places, leaving the crawl space exposed to any moisture rising from the earth. Lastly, we saw efflorescence along the foundation walls of the crawl space, which suggests that moisture forced its way through these porous cinderblock walls, bringing along with it the salts and sediments from within the blocks to the surface, creating a chalky, powdery substance. We quickly drew up a proposal to seal and insulate this crawl space, giving it protection from outside air and moisture influence.