View Single Post
Old 01-13-13, 07:41 PM   #5
Exeric
Apprentice EcoRenovator
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: California
Posts: 274
Thanks: 19
Thanked 37 Times in 28 Posts
Default

Opiesche, It looks like you are doing a great job. There is a dividing line on how you handle crawl spaces that involves either vented or unvented crawl spaces. In vented crawl spaces the poly up the wall of the foundation is not critical at all. In that case the 6 mil poly is just to keep ground water vapor from infiltrating the crawl space. Any vapor that gets in there by other means is assumed to be handled by air circulation from the vents.

The other type of crawl space is encapsulated crawl spaces. There is a huge amount of confusion about encapsulated crawl spaces, even by inspection professionals. So take advice about it with a grain of salt unless you know the person is thoroughly up to date. All encapsulated crawl spaces should have no venting to outside air. That means the poly should go all the way up the sides and to the rim joists. All outside air access should be tightly sealed.

So far not much confusion. Where there is controversy is about bringing the encapsulated crawl space into the conditioned air space. The most advanced thinking I've been reading about says that all encapsulated crawl spaces should be conditioned air crawl spaces. This means venting inside conditioned air to the crawl space. This would also imean insulating the perimeter foundation walls and also the rim joists. It's a big task but from everything I've read it is well worth doing. Once it is done you don't have to insulate the floors and no longer have to worry about leaks from air ducting in the crawl space because it is all conditioned air space.

Like I said, I don't think the building industry is up to speed on this so it may contradict what you have been told. Here's a link.

http://www.buildingscience.com/docum...ace_2010r2.pdf
Exeric is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following User Says Thank You to Exeric For This Useful Post:
opiesche (01-13-13)