Crawl Space INFO

[BIGNASTY]

Away from home for now but was helping a friend with some plumbing add-ons at his place.

I noticed in his crawl space its COLD AS XXXX un-insulated between floor joists. Mine in Indiana is un-insulated also but our crawl space is as warm as the house. Both have the vents around the parameter of the crawl space foundation.

Question is, Should I have insulation between the floor joists or what and why is mine so warm? I haven't been under the floor that much to see anything out of the ordinary like a de-humidifier. Haven't lived in an area with hi humidity as Indiana

WHAT GIVES?

 

[BarryG]

Maybe
Sounds like the difference between conditioned and unconditioned crawl space. Yours with the heat more than likely has some heat vents going into it and as such does not need the insulation. The perimeter vents are likely for humidity/ moisture control.

Perhaps your friend just had a shoddy or cheap builder who cheaped out on the insulation or heater vents. No water lines under there? Depending on age of the house, code I think requires unconditioned crawl spaces to have a vapor barrier and a minimum r value rating.

We have an unconditioned crawl space at a house we have down in SW Colorado. It is insulated and does have a vapor barrier. Along with perimeter vents. Not to mention one end has a covered deck/porch and is open to the crawl space (just through the decking not like the end isn’t enclosed) When we aren’t there we turn off the water so it won’t freeze and I do have heat tape on the water line (now) from where it comes out of the ground up into the insulated area. It did freeze once many years ago. Got a call from the water company letting me know we had used 60k gallons and there was probably problem somewhere (ya think). Though thankful they called otherwise it would have been a lot more. In any case the temp under there rarely gets below mid thirties (put thermometer under there after that problem)unless there is sustained below zero temps at night and only teens in the day for several days. I have thought about turning it into conditioned space but just have not got around to it over the last 20 years. Since the heat tape and turning off the water when not there no more problems with it. However just a couple years ago the water company’s lines froze on their side of the meter.

 

[BIGNASTY]

This could be because when we moved in during August of the year first thing I was concerned about was mold & rot on wood, and since the perimiter of the foundation is cinder block filled with concrete I was looking for water intrusion, Neither of these concerns appeared. The home inspection folks were HIGHLY recommended by our Realtor said that it was in perfect condition.

Then as we approached winter I thought about pipes freezing and again went under the house only to find that it was pretty warm, I was thinking that it was the heating ducts there's a main square duct with different size flexible insulated ducts running to the various registers throughout the house. Since I have no water intrusion & no mold or rot Im wondering if I should leave well enough alone?

The House is total electric the first winters highest electric bill was $220 for the coldest month of that winter. Considering that the water, stove, dryer, A/C EVERYTHING is electric we didn't feel this was that high of a bill. Before the next winter I had installed a Heatmaster Wood boiler for heating the house and during burn-season the hot water. None of the electric bills have been more than $140 since I'm not using electric to heat any longer, but using the XXXX out of a Miller wire feed I thought would raise up the electric.

 

[Hoefler]

If the duct work is run in the crawl space, it will be warm, with or without vents. If the duct work is in the attic, the crawl space will be cold.