Q: I would appreciate your opinion on whether I should hire a company to line the crawl space of my house. It’s about 2,400 square feet, and I suspect the work would be pretty pricey. Is it worth it?

Although we installed French drains around the house and sump pumps in our crawl space when we remodeled about four years ago, we still get some dampness under the house. I don’t know if it’s because we are at the bottom of a hill or because of the low water table, but I worry about it, especially when I go on a trip and the house has been closed up for a while. I can smell moisture in the air when I return.

Do you think I could handle this as a do-it-yourself job? I would need to know what materials to buy and if it is really necessary to line the foundation walls. How do you tack down the liner to the ground? Do you really need to level the dirt?

A: Dampness under the house is not necessarily a bad thing, but it must be controlled. Controlled, not eliminated, is the operative word.

Our boyhood home in San Leandro, Calif., was at the bottom of a hill just above Interstate 580. When Dad built the house, he was aware of the possible effect of water on the foundation. So he installed a French drain directing groundwater from the uphill side of the house through drainpipes to the street below. We remember water gushing out of those drainpipes and the crawl space being bone dry.

Unfortunately, after many years, most of the water was wrung out of the clay soil; the ground began to shrink; and the foundation sagged. That drainage system was too much of a good thing.

In our opinion, taking one more step in an effort to control the moisture in your crawl space is the right thing to do.

A vapor barrier blocking evaporation of ground moisture will lower the relative humidity in the crawl space and hopefully the mustiness you complain of.

Research shows that humidity levels in crawl spaces more or less follow the relative humidity of the outside air. Most soils contain a significant amount of clay. Clay acts as a desiccant.


***


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