When it comes to your home, it’s easy to focus on the kitchen, master bedroom, and bathrooms. But, have you ever thought about what’s lying beneath the surface? We know the answer – a sealed crawl space.
While it might not be the most exciting part of your home, there are plenty of benefits that sealed crawl spaces provide. Today, we wanted to highlight what exactly is a sealed crawl space, and how it’s a fundamental part of protecting your health and safety within a custom modular home.
One of the advantages of working with Carolina Custom Homes of Burlington is that we build all of our custom modular homes with a sealed crawl space to provide better home protection and air quality. Unlike vented crawl spaces, a sealed crawl space offers a number of health benefits to your house and your family. Without further ado, let’s dive into what is a sealed crawl space and how can it benefit your home.
The Difference Between A Vented Crawl Space
and Sealed Crawl Space
At Carolina Custom Homes, our modular built homes have fully customizable features that give homeowners the flexibility and opportunity to create the home of their dreams. However, there is plenty going on below that beautifully customized modular home – such as your sealed crawl space.
Traditionally, most crawl spaces are vented areas that buffer your home from the earth below and allow air to pass beneath the house freely. While this sounds great in theory, there are some technical difficulties that come with vented crawl space.
With a vented crawl space, there are a variety of different problems homeowners can experience, such as:
Because vented crawl spaces have a problem regulating moisture, additional water from roof runoff can enter your crawl space and tends to stay trapped. This leads to mold, fungus, and unwanted animals being attracted to your crawl space.
Air Quality
With so much trapped moisture, there is more humid air and cold air that becomes stuck in your crawl space. Over time, this compromised air can rise to the top floor of your living space, causing respiratory problems and musty smells in your home.
Structural Complications
Additional moisture isn’t supportive of your home’s structure. Over time, all that damp air within your crawl space can cause wood to weaken, rot, and compromise the structure of your home so it doesn’t meet building codes.
High Energy Expenses
With so much additional moisture, hot and cool air can enter your home more frequently. These additional fluxations in moisture and temperature mean your home has to work twice as hard to regulate its internal temperature, which means your utility bills will increase because your home is working twice as hard.
Unfortunately, if you live in a humid area, chances are this could happen to you. Your home’s vented crawl space might not be able to keep moisture out, which can lead to all the problems listed above. The most common issues associated with a vented crawl space are mold, mildew, wood rot, and poor air quality. Even worse, open crawl spaces can provide a permanent home to pests and local wildlife.
At Carolina Custom Homes, we believe your investment should last a lifetime. Rather than let a vapor barrier of additional moisture damage your home from within, we make it our priority to create a crawl space that can support your home, and it’s internal structure.
What is a Sealed Crawl Space?
Now that you’ve learned more about vented crawl space, we’re going to discuss a sealed crawl space and the conditioned crawl space benefits that come with a custom modular home.
A closed or “sealed” crawl space has no wall vents, meaning air cannot pass into the crawl space from outside your home. The ground in a sealed crawl space is covered with a moisture barrier that is sealed against the foundation walls. This moisture barrier, which is typically made using polyethylene, is incredibly lightweight, durable, and is the most efficient way to keep excess water out of your home. All gaps are sealed to create an air and watertight sealed space using this barrier. Finally, a sloped exterior grading around the foundation pulls water away from the house, so you’re less likely to encounter additional moisture in the first place.
A “sealed” crawl space, also known as an encapsulated crawl space, is far more efficient, safer, and a better way to protect your home from the elements. No matter the moisture levels, your home is going to stay dry, protected, and last for years to come.
If you live in an area with a lot of moisture in the air such as the Southeastern United States, your home is at greater risk of developing mold and mildew within its crawl space. Having a sealed crawl space will prevent the buildup of moisture which can lead to mold, mildew, and other health concerns. Overall, while a sealed crawl space might not be as well known as a vented crawl space, they provide a number of additional benefits to your home.
Additional Sealed Crawl Space Benefits
While the additional moisture protection is the primary benefit of sealed crawl spaces, there other conditioned crawl space benefits. Besides preventing moisture from entering your home, a sealed crawl space also:
Improves air quality, making it a great option for anyone with allergies or respiratory issues.With less moisture, unwanted allergens, mold, dust, and mildew are attracted to your crawl space. This will prevent those additional health risks from harming elderly relatives, or at-risk family members that have asthma or are prone to respiratory illnesses.
Saves you up to 18% on your heating and cooling costs each year.
The additional moisture barrier protects your home from additional hot and cold air, meaning your modular home will be able to maintain its energy efficiency, and your monthly energy bills will be highly affordable.
The moisture-free crawl space reduces the chance of mold and mildew
This saves you the expense of contacting a mold removal company to clean and clear your crawl space.
Moisture control also reduces the chance of buckling underneath hardwood floors and protects your subfloors.
Your custom modular home’s structure will be preserved, which means you’ll be able to protect your home from premature wear and tear.
Keeps your floors warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.
Not only can you enjoy walking barefoot in your house, but this will also keep your home’s energy bills under control.
The dry air prevents frozen pipes in the winter.
Dealing with frozen pipes in your modular home is something no one enjoys. Rather than combat frozen pipes, which can be detrimental and very costly to your home, you can enjoy an energy-efficient and safe home all year long.
The sealed area helps deter termites, pests, and wildlife from entering your home.
Calling an exterminator is costly – plus, preventing this additional bug year after year is going to wrack up high bills. With a vented crawl space, you can stick to the once a year annual exterminator appointment.
Having a sealed crawl space offers numerous benefits to you, your family, and your home, and can even save you money on your energy bills! Health, safety, and additional savings shouldn’t be something you have to compromise on in the first place.
When you build a custom modular home with Carolina Custom Homes of Burlington, your modular home will come with a sealed crawl space, which is a standard building requirement for all our homes. Plus, we construct our homes to be highly energy-efficient, so you can have the beautiful custom built modular home you’ve dreamed of at a highly affordable price.
Build Your Dream Custom Modular Home with Carolina Custom Homes of Burlington
At Carolina Custom Homes, we believe that your home should be built with integrity, which is why we take the time to explain how we build your modular home from start to finish. From crawl spaces to energy-efficient construction materials, we take the time to craft a beautiful and affordable modular home for all our customers. Not to mention, all of our home floor plans are 100% customizable – for more information, review the complete custom home building process.
Not sure if you can afford to build a custom modular home with a sealed crawl space? Don’t worry – at Carolina Custom Homes we like to give our customers a variety of options, so you can build the affordable custom modular home of your dreams. Learn more by viewing our FREE webinar, Modulars 101: Your Guide to Customization!
