Are powered foundation vents effective at reducing crawlspace humidity??
Long ago I read about these. It seemed there was no consensus as to powered foundation vents effectiveness. Has anyone here had these that they could share their experience?
Last edited by SJMaye; 08-22-23 at 05:44 AM.
Reason: Clarity
Do they work, yes. Is it necessary, that is the debatable part. If you have an older home with few foundation vents and have crawl space humidity issues then I'd consider it. Modern homes have many more vents required by code so I'd tend to not use a powered vent.
Being built in 1987, I have an older home. I have been measuring humidity levels for a while. The latest was the highest I have seen at 80%. I am sure it doesn't help the musty smell.
I live in Tennessee. The humidity in the summer can be horrible.
80% humidity is too high. Mold or similar can thrive and grow. I would put at least one humidity sensor down there and monitor it daily. If you cannot keep the humidity below 60% with ventilation then I would suggest you consider making this an encapsulated area and installing a dehumidifier.
Hey everyone,
We bought a house and ended up getting a bit of unexpected project at our hands. To make long story short. Shortly after taking the possession of the house we found cracks in the foundation (quite many) that were hidden behind tons of stuff that the previous owner had.
When we inspected the house, we saw efflorescence and we knew that it will need work, it just appears that there is going to be more work :)
Anyway,
so the house is 49 years old and it sits on the block foundation. The back wall has a bunch of horizontal cracks and is bowed at about 1/4 inch in a couple of places. There is no real water in the basement but there is a lot of efflorescence on the block at the footing and on the floor. There is not efflorescence above the footing.
[img]https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/640x480/img_0950_e8fa33ed6f7ec67b30d2670fdfce9960bab22ced.jpg[/img]
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Unfortunately, only one wall in the basement is not finished, so we don't know what is going on with the rest of the foundation yet.
To make things worse, the foundation is covered with the polystyrene boards on the inside and together with the moisture they create a fantastic environment for mold :)
[img]https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/640x480/img_0953_9b62cf2f0d7d1dcf55d1abbb13f6e91de8076f1c.jpg[/img]
I called a structural engineer who told me that the issue we have is due to the high water table as it's common in this neighborhood. Our house sits higher than the land around it. We have a sump pump but the sump pump pit stays dry even after the long and heavy rains.
[img]https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/640x480/img_0941_6a814ae142861214765318e2e4a2893041716bd3.jpg[/img]
It appears that we probably don't have French drain as I don't see any piping coming to the sump pump.
The proposed solution is to excavate the foundation ~ 7-8 ft deep, put a membrane and install French drain. Unfortunately, the quote hurts - we got $60k quote to do this. (We live in Canada). It's a bungalow with the large footprint and on top of that, our porch is made out of the concrete slab that needs to be broken for the workers to be able to get to the foundation and bumps the cost.
I am interested to know if we can get away with internal weeping tile. I plan on removing the drywall and polystyrene boards in the basement to find out what we got but it might be the case that we are only getting the water from underneath, so putting the drain internally under the slab should do the job.
As for the wall cracks, we have a stone patio recently installed by the previous owner and the installation was done improperly. And it might be contributing to the cracking of the back walls. We'll take it apart and rebuild it maintaining the proper grading. Also the previous owner let the gutters completely dirty to the point that the gutters got plants growing inside, so the rain water didn't go away properly.
We cleaned the gutters, we'll regrade the land on the back but my main question is whether internal weeping tile under the footing would be a good solution. It's significantly cheaper than external solution, especially if I add the cost to rebuild the landscaping in front of the house to the $60k project.
If anyone has similar experience, please share!
Thank you so much!
I've attached a few photos around the house:
[img]https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/640x480/img_0936_45dd6b94c80bcb97da4f41082af2b2121ce2dfbf.jpg[/img]
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[img]https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.doityourselft.com-vbulletin/1500x2000/left_side_root_cellar_3185e530e9b7866b3c442696ec3c0aa124f35854.jpg[/img]
Hi Everyone,
I have a brick root cellar in my basement(1871) The bricks are spalling & crumbling & I would like to do whatever I can to stop it(I have read about sealers, but with the age condition of some bricks i was looking for any input). Thank you!Read More
08-22-23, 03:49 AM
