When was the last time you had a crawl space repair service visit?
If you’re like many homeowners, chances are you don’t think about your crawl space that often. It’s down underneath your home, well out of sight, and doesn’t need much maintenance.
Just because the crawl space isn’t an obvious part of your home doesn’t mean you can afford to ignore it, however. A wet crawl space can create structural damage to your home or cause health problems for your family. And a crawl space that hasn’t been inspected in a long time can become a home for unwanted pests.
Unfortunately, the crawl space is one of the parts of a home that’s most often neglected. Homeowners may allow their crawl space to go for years without thinking about having it looked at. The result can be anything from poorer indoor air quality to severe moisture damage.
The good news is, crawl space repair can be a breeze with the right service. And there are many great benefits of having your crawl space repaired. To find out how you can stand to benefit from crawl space repair services, keep reading now.
1. Balance Uneven Floors
You may think that crawl space problems probably won’t affect the rest of your home that much. After all, what happens in the crawl space stays in the crawl space, right?
But that isn’t always the case, especially where the floors of your home are concerned. If there are structural problems in your crawl space, they can manifest throughout your house in the form of uneven floors. This is a side-effect of a bigger problem that causes your home to be off-balance.
Besides uneven floors, an imbalanced house can cause cracks in the walls and stuck doors. Fortunately, crawl space repair can prevent this.
2. Get Rid of Mold and Mildew
You’re probably aware of just how devastating water damage can be to a home. Besides causing structural damage after enough time, excess moisture almost always results in mold and mildew buildup.
This is why it’s so important to repair vapor barriers in crawl spaces. A vapor barrier is an insulating material that discourages the diffusion of moisture. It basically helps keep your home and crawl space dry, which prevents mold and mildew.
If there’s already mold or mildew developing in your crawl space, it’s not too late to do something about it. A good crawl space repair service can abolish mold and mildew and prevent future growth.
3. Stabilize Your Home’s Temperature
You may not have guessed, but the condition of your crawl space plays a big role in controlling the temperature of your home. This is partly because, for homes with central air conditioning and heating, the air ducts usually travel under the floors in the crawl spaces.
If your crawl space is poorly insulated, then the outside air will affect the temperature of the air inside the ducts before it even has time to be distributed around your home.
Another problem with having poor insulation in your crawl space is that the air temperature under your house will affect the air temperature inside it through the floors.
4. Repair Foundation Cracks
You may not think that little cracks could become a big problem, but if left alone, they can. Crawl space foundation repair is important because small cracks must be fixed before they grow larger.
For minor cracks in the foundation or crawl space walls, simple epoxy injection or filler can normally be used. Some cracks are already too big for this simple treatment by the time they’re discovered, however. For those, crack stitching will be necessary to prevent further damage.
Once foundation cracks are repaired, the structure of your home’s crawl space will regain its strength. But it’s best to have them repaired before they get too large.
5. Make Your Crawl Space Airtight
Most older crawl spaces are not entirely airtight, and that can be a problem. If there are loopholes or openings in the crawl space walls, they can allow outside air into your home. This has an obvious negative impact on your insulation and temperature control.
An expert crawl space repair service can make your crawl space truly airtight by sealing any holes in the walls. Simply sealing your crawl space can have many positive effects, from stabilizing your home’s temperature to preventing pest infestations. If there are any cracks or holes in your crawl space, you should have them repaired as soon as possible.
6. Enjoy Cleaner Indoor Air
We all know about the importance of indoor air quality. We breathe the air in our homes 24/7, including when we’re sleeping. But did you know that much of the air you breathe in your home rises from your crawl space?
When the air in a crawl space gets warm, water vapor is pushed through the floors of your home, taking the crawl space air with it into the rest of the house. Because of this, it’s a good idea to make sure the air quality in your crawl space is good, too—not just your home’s indoor air.
7. Make Your Floors More Comfortable
We’ve pointed out that the state of your crawl space affects your floors in different ways. One way the air in your crawl space impacts your home is by affecting the temperature of your flooring.
The reason for this is fairly obvious: if the air in your crawl space is cold during the winter, it will cause your floors to feel cold. If the crawl space air is hot during the summer, it will cause your floors to feel too warm.
As you might have guessed, the best solution for this is to improve the insulation in your crawl space. Fortunately, that is usually a fairly simple procedure that every good crawl space repair service can do.
8. Avoid Expensive Future Repairs
One of the biggest reasons for routine home maintenance is to prevent the need for more severe and expensive repairs in the future. If you address problems while they’re still small, you can usually prevent them from escalating into serious issues.
Because your crawl space has a significant impact on the condition of your whole home, having it regularly inspected by a repair service is a must. Moisture damage, pest infestations, and poor insulation can cause severe harm to a home over time. Sealing and repairing your crawl space costs significantly less than repairing water-damaged or buckled floors.
9. Reduce Your Energy Bills
Everyone wants to know how they can save money on their regular expenses, especially for things like their utilities. Yet you may not have guessed that repairing and maintaining your crawl space can help significantly with energy costs.
We’ve discussed how improvements to your crawl space can make it easier to control your home’s temperature and air quality. But these benefits don’t only affect your home’s comfort—they also result in lower energy bills. This is because better insulation results in naturally cooler temperatures in summer and warmer temperatures in winter.
10. Encapsulate Your Crawl Space
Sometimes, wet crawl space repair by itself isn’t a sufficient solution. To get the best possible long-term results, you might want to consider crawl space encapsulation.
Crawl space encapsulation seals off your crawl space from the outside, resolving many of the problems discussed so far at the same time. Encapsulating your crawl space will help prevent mold, improve insulation, and prevent pest infestations, all at the same time.
Crawl space encapsulation isn’t a simple procedure, but it’s well worth the benefits. Talk to your crawl space repair service to determine if it’s the right choice for your home.
Call Your Local Crawl Space Repair Service Today
And there you have it: just a few of the many amazing benefits of crawl space repair. As you can see, you have many reasons to get your crawl space improved and nothing to lose by having it serviced.
Knowing about all the benefits of crawl space repair won’t do you any good without calling a service and scheduling a visit, however. Crawlspace Medic will have you covered if you want to check for water damage or need crawl space joist repair.
Contact us today, and we’ll get your home’s crawl space inspected as soon as possible.
