Danny Lipford: Frank asks, “Do I really need to insulate my crawl space?”
While insulating your crawl space is not absolutely necessary, it will help a lot to minimize any of the moisture or temperature intrusions into your home. But to tell you the truth, it’ll take you a long time to get your money back on the money that you spend on insulating that crawl space.
Far better to spend that money in the attic making sure it’s insulated well, and sealing up the envelope of your home. But if you decide to put insulation in your crawl space, make sure you turn the paper toward the living space, so that you don’t create any type of moisture trap.
Now, moisture is a big problem in crawl spaces, so it is strongly recommended to put a moisture barrier right on the ground. You can use a 6-mil plastic, clear or black, then you can weight down the perimeter of it with some small bricks, gravel, sand, or just a little bit of dirt to keep it from blowing away.
This will prevent the ground moisture from migrating up into your home, which ends up costing you some money.
This post originally appeared on Today’s Homeowner:
For more information on this topic, check out: