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Old 03-27-14, 07:49 AM   #2
gasstingy
Journeyman EcoRenovator
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Arab, AL
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Talking

Good morning Leaning, and welcome aboard. Lot's of fine people here, plenty more knowledgeable than I, but here goes anyway. We do have a little in common, the climate and damp crawl space being most obvious. I live in North Alabama in a single story brick home and suffered with a damp crawl space and mold issues.

I have automatic damper foundation vents and they are nearly worthless in my opinion for moisture control. I installed the heavy vapor barrier material including running it up the foundation walls about 12", taped the seams and noticed no significant improvement. Since I was mostly tired of the mildew on the floor joists in the crawl space, I pulled out all the fiberglass insulation and threw it away. Then I wiped down all of the exposed lumber with a mixture of ~ 90% hydrogen peroxide and ~ 10% distilled vinegar. The lumber all looked brand new when it was done. The very next day, I had all the wood under the house sprayed with 2" of closed cell foam. Don't try this with open cell foam as moisture can pass through open cell, not closed cell. Now, I don't worry about mold anymore. {In many cases, professionals recommend sealing up the crawl space and insulating the floor and around the perimeter and then including this in the conditioned space.}

I'm not a huge fan of fiberglass insulation. Personally, I'd use cellulose. The energy audit guy recommended I used suggested we install 5" additional insulation in my attic when we were talking about down-sizing our central unit, so we added 10". All blown insulation settles, after all.

As all things mechanical break down eventually, have you considered installing a continuous ridge vent? I don't know if you can do this yourself or have to hire it out, but it's an option. Our last house was an inferno in the attic and the attic fans ran from daylight to hours past dark before they'd shut off. Our present house has a continuous ridge vent and continuous soffit vents all the way around the house. This attic is cooler, but to be fair, the roof is more steeply pitched and is galvalume versus black asphalt shigles. Still, there is nothing to break down, and no rumbling in the attic from the fans.

More will surely welcome you soon and we all wish you well. When you make changes, please document the changes so you can share your experiences, and take pictures. We all like pictures!
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