Crawl Space InsulationThere are three major environment situations that call for insulation in a crawl space. The first is your standard dirt floor (may have some plastic laid on the floor) crawl with open vents which is referred to as an open crawl space. This environment is similar in temperature to the outside air in the winter which causes the homes floors to be cold and rooms farthest from the furnace to be drafty. Frozen water lines are common in this situation as is an odor in the warmer...

Conditioned crawl space uses all of the positive parts of the other crawl space designs and leaves out the negative ones. A conditioned crawl space is part of the home, finally leaving the outside out and taking the final steps beyond the other options to create a healthy comfortable home.

This design is referred to by many different names; encapsulated crawl space, closed crawl space, conditioned crawl space. All of these names refer to essentially the same thing but may have a different process. The vents are permanently closed. The crawl space is completely sealed off from any moisture infiltration by using a heavy duty vapor barrier like SilverBack™. In a conditioned crawl space the foundation walls need to be insulated with a rigid foam to keep any cold air from entering...

This type of crawl space takes advantage of both the “closed” and the “concrete” crawl space strengths. In this design sealing the walls with an insulation to control energy costs also protects the crawl space from moisture penetration from the foundation walls.