just installed pergo over a wood subfloor. My house doesn't have a concrete slab; it's got a crawl space that is well ventilated. The grade is sloped away from the house and I live in a very moderate climate (SF Bay Area, CA). Is a vapor barrier over the crawlspace surface necessary?

I bought my first house last year and spent a lot more in heating it than I thought I would, especially because it has all new viny windows and siding. So I paid for an "energy" inspector to come in and give me some recommendations as I'm completely clueless about this stuff. He said we could add insulation in the attic... hopefully easy enough although we could not find anyone to blow more up there so we are going to put batts over the blown in fibreglass. The real HUGE problem, however, has been the crawl space. I'm in Newfoundland, Canada... think Maine but much colder! Crawl space is approximately 55 inches high, poured concrete foundation with a loose gravel floor. It has one vent in it, approximately 4 by 8 inches. There is a sump pump and a rusted metal panel on the siding. There are pipes running through it (I have hot water radiation as my heat source) and there is some insulation along the ceiling in the joists, but the joists are nowhere near to being full for insulation (3.5 inches out of possible 9.5!). He estimates it to be about a R12 value. There is no vapour retarder on the floor or the walls. The only thing on the walls is "Donna Conna" (which, through searching on the internet seems mainly a sound board) and apparently there's not enough insulation on the joist headers, where he says the wood is starting to turn dark. He recommended insulating the walls of the crawl space (not more on the ceiling to protect the pipes from getting too cold and bursting) with foam board stuck on with adhesive. And laying down a 6 mil polyethylene sheet on the gravel floor to take care of moisture problems. Said that with foam board, according to fire codes, we should have drywall or something over it, but could easily just put more polyethylene sheeting over that as well and it would be okay. The problem comes now that I cannot find foam board ANYWHERE in the community. The closest place I can find it is 3 hours away and it would cost an arm and a leg to have shipped. Not to mention that it's only an inch thick, so I'd need to "double up" on it and I'm not sure that's okay. I've been searching on Owens Corning web site and it looks like with some furring strips and some longer rolls of fibreglass, we could do the same thing, but I'm at a complete loss about how to go about installing that. I'm really at a loss about everything. I've been trying to find a solution for 3 weeks online and trying to contact contractors here but there is such a building boom that they don't want to talk to you unless you're building a new house. I don't want to do it wrong, but it seems like every time I find an answer to how to insulate it, I find someplace that says not to insulate it that way because of something or the other. :wall: If anyone could give me some direction, I would really appreciate it. On the best way to insulate either the crawl space walls or the joist headers. Thanks in advance!