The negitive impact an open crawl space has on a home extends from comfort to energy waste. The research is in, the impact of indoor air pollution, costly structure repairs and the strain on the heating and cooling system caused by the crawl space environment has more home owners looking to enclose their crawl space as an all in one solution. Let us explore how is this done and how much should it cost.

In this design a concrete pad called a “mud pad” is poured on the crawl space floor. This is essentially a concrete barrier meant to help control moisture in the crawl space. This is done several ways; with and with out a vapor barrier. The traditional mud pad is a poured concrete pad over a roughly graded dirt floor.

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 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.

A crawl space with a concrete floor either with or without foundation vents This type of crawl space is not as common but has its advantages. For one, this type of construction is more energy efficient than an open crawl space if constructed without foundation vents.

Within the last few years the building code has allowed homes built on a crawl space to be built as a “closed crawl space”. This means foundation vents are not required as long as other requirements are met. This type of crawl space is more energy efficient than an open crawl space.