Why Budget-Savvy Homeowners Love Our Crawl Space Encapsulations and Insulation

Insulation is one of the best home improvement projects you can choose if you're looking to immediately lower the cost of homeownership—as it can significantly lower your heating bills.

But, why the crawl space? It might surprise you that the answer starts with condensation and moisture.

Although it's a commonly forgotten area of the home, the crawl space is a common victim to the most issues with moisture due to groundwater or especially during heavy rain.

In a damp crawl space, your home—including existing insulation—can soak up the water and create a very humid environment for mold, wood rot, insects, critters, and dust mites to thrive. It also causes condensation on your air ducts, which makes your HVAC more expensive to run. To prevent this from happening, you need a crawl space encapsulation. And, if you'd like to be especially savvy with your home improvement budget, we highly recommend adding crawl space insulation with it. 

Why Crawl Space Insulation?

You can save anywhere between 15-25% on your heating and cooling costs with proper crawl space insulation, depending on numerous structural factors of your home. However, if you have ducts in the crawl space, you especially benefit from crawl space insulation.

While we might like to think of our HVAC system as completely separate from our crawl space, the truth is that your crawl space environment not only affects your HVAC, but your overall home. In fact, over 50% of the air in your crawl space is circulated through the first floor of your home. If that air is damp, musty, or moldy, then it affects the health of your overall home as well. 

With a crawl space encapsulation with insulation, you will not only protect the energy efficiency and air quality of your home, but also your air ducts from moisture (which makes it more expensive for your HVAC to run). 

After consulting the building science, we've found the two most effective ways to insulate your crawl space are via the walls and the floors. Here's more information on both, and why we don't insulate directly below your floors, into the floor joists.

Your Floors Are Already Inside Your Home—There's No Need To Insulate The Floor Joists

Insulation should always be installed against the air boundary surface of the house. Because your floors are the boundary between two inside spaces of your home, you don't need to insulate it. That insulation is better spent on your crawl space walls and floors, where it's a boundary between inside your home and the outside elements.

We will seal and insulate between floor joists against the wall, but the main goal is to seal all outside air leaks and insulate the walls and floors to make your crawl space a conditioned space in the home—and a friendly space for your air ducts. 

Crawl Space Wall Insulation

Our SilverGlo© crawl space wall insulation is made of polystyrene foam with graphite, resisting heat flow with superior R-value per inch. Additionally, it strengthens the waterproofing benefits of a CleanSpace© encapsulation, and features a radiant barrier which reflects heat back into the home for ultimate energy savings. 

Crawl Space Floor Insulation

Our TerraBlock© crawl space floor insulation helps prevent heat loss due to exposure to the earth. The earth is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit year round, and we typically want our homes to be about 71 degrees Fahrenheit. With TerraBlock©, its expanded polystyrene foam insulation with vapor barrier on both sides not only fortifies the waterproofing ability of your encapsulation, but designed to maximize the temperature difference expected between the inside of your crawl space and the earth. 

If you'd like a FREE inspection and estimate of work for your home, contact us today! Our team is passionate about protecting homes from moisture and soil settlement, and we know the ways that frugal or money-savvy homeowners can make the most of their home improvement budget too.