Delaware Crawl Space Company has just encapsulated a crawl space in Rehoboth Beach Delaware. The homeowners had contacted us because they were having a musty smell in their home.
After inspecting their crawl space we realized the smells were coming from wet sagging insulation, condensation on the old duct board, not to mention they had a 6 mil poly vapor barrier that was only covering half of the damp crawl space floor. Their crawl space was at 79% Relative Humidity, which was causing the pipes and duct board to sweat. The floor of the crawl space was very un-level, so we had to install 2 sump pumps, with separate drain tile to each. We also made sure that the dehumidifier and the condensation from the air conditioner unit was diverted to the sump pump basin, with a sealed lid.
After encapsulation, the smells were completely gone with no more condensation, after we installed our approved crawl space dehumidifier, and humidity was down to 55%. We sprayed foamed the perimeter of the crawl space with 1.5 inches of closed cell foam, for R-value, and to stop the outside air from penetrating the crawl space. We also installed our custom designed galvanized access door wells, with a composite sealed door.