Another crawl space question

[Rick Vollmer]

First, let me say thanks for all the help you guy's have given me. This is a great forum.

Anyway, since my crawl space floor and the poly are in such a mess, I am going to remove and replace all the poly down there. My question is, how do I fill in some holes/valleys/ditches etc that are down there. Would I use dirt or pea gravel? These are not drainage runs, just various impressions caused by people working down there and some previous water leaks. Along some of the foundation where there are foundation vents, the water problem was bad enough that I can see under the foundation.

Please keep in mind that whatever I use, I must get it down there thru a 8 x 16 opening.

Many thanks in advance.....

[Greg Veal]

Rick

How are you going to get through an 8" x 16" opening to install anything in that crawl space?

[Doug Edwards, CMI]

You will have to hire Olive Oyl to work in the crawl. BTW around here they use Builders' sand in a lot of the crawl spaces.

[Nick Gromicko]

Styrofoam packing peanuts. Easy to handle and they last 10,000 years.

[David P. Valley]

Rick,

If it's a crawlspace and you will not be using it on a regular basis, the holes are no big deal. Just poly right over the entire uneven dirt floor.

If I were to make it a perfectly level crawlspace, I'd use dirt to fill in any imperfections in the soil.

Good Luck.

[Rick Vollmer]

Originally Posted by gveal

Rick

How are you going to get through an 8" x 16" opening to install anything in that crawl space?

I quess that did sound kind of stupid. What I meant was that whatever I used, I was going to feed it to the crawl space by removing some vents. I can get into the crawl space easily, but since I have 8 vents, I did not want to do a duck walk all thru the crawl carrying dirt or gravel.....

I did get a chuckle out of your reply...

[Jeffery L. Haynes]

Hire a couple young teens and pay them to level it out.... preferably with dirt or rock screening. Poly about a foot above the walls making sure that the poly is lapped at least 6 - 12 inches. A simple trick to keep the poly in place is to use the wires used to hold the insulation within the joist cavities.

Depending on the humidity in your area, you should check the band / rim boards above the crawlspace vents.....in humid areas it is common to see fungi in those areas which can and often eventually leads to wood rot. I have seen this even in crawlspaces that were at high as 4 ft. off the ground with no drainage problems.

[Joe Funderburk, CMI]

Sound like you should hire a good home inspector to do a limited inspection of the crawl space only. Cost should be about $150.

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by gromicko

Styrofoam packing peanuts. Easy to handle and they last 10,000 years.

In the Ozarks, those "peanuts" are referred to as "Ghost Poop", just in case you wanted to add that to the official NACHI "Glossary of Construction Terminology".

[Dan Bowers, CMI]

To: Jim -

Whats a crawlspace??

From: The "Fair Weather Home Inspector"

My new marketing niche