I'm Covered in Mud in the Crawl Space

Craig DeWitt Headshot

Another canceled court appearance. I often don't hear what happens after I inspect a house, and sometimes I get to hear a verdict of a court case. But when they settle before the trial, I don't get to find out what happened. I don't find out if I was helpful.

Last week I looked at some cupped floors over a damp crawl space. I wear disposable coveralls when I crawl a crawl space. This one I really had to crawl, and when I came out, I was coated with mud. The soil was not covered, but there were two circulation fans and a dehumidifier in the crawl space running their little hearts out. Things were still sopping wet.

Have you ever tried heating your house with the windows open? Isn't it easier with the windows closed? Well, the same goes for a dehumidifier. This poor dehumidifier could remove about 60 pints of water on a good day. The exposed soil was generating about 160 pints a day. Wouldn't it make more sense to cover the soil and stop making that 160 pints, so the dehumidifier could work on controlling moisture from other sources?

And the fans....  A little secret is that if you want to dry something, you need to blow dry air on it, not wet air. Blowing wet air around doesn't solve anything.

The homeowner was unhappy with her cupped floors and high energy bills from the fans and dehumidifier. The power company was happy, though. One of my life objectives is to give the power company as little money as possible. In this situation, I got to help the homeowner with her floors, and the power company gets a little less money as well.

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