Has anyone sealed their crawlspace with "Clean Space"? The crawlspace has to have some air movement.
The newfangled way of doing it is called a "conditioned" crawl space. That's what we did on our place. Put down some sand, then the plastic membrane which got glued to the foundation walls with nasty poly caulking. Then we had a spray foam contractor come and spray the inside of the foundation walls with about 4" of foam.
We do not have any insulation in the floor.
Works great, but you do have to move some air.
Normally with a HVAC system you leave a large gap at the bottom of your interior doors to act as you return. In our house we have a vent to the crawl space in each room to act as the return. Then we have a HRV (heat recovery ventilator) that comes on intermittently and sucks stale are from the crawlspace, spits it outside, draws fresh air from outside and introduces it into the HVAC return air. This is a great thing to install if your house is pretty tight and you keep your windows closed during the seasonal extremes. It has a heat exchanger in it, so it splits the difference between the incoming and outgoing air... these things have been used for years on commercial buildings.
It is a neat system, so far has worked well for us. Electricity is pretty expensive out here, we've been pleased with our utility bills in the new house. Our July bill was about $90.00, for a 2500 square foot house, in a dry climate with seasonal extremes. (gets into the 100's in the summer).
You will probably have to get some sort of alternative building material variance permit, or something like that. Our house was the first conditioned crawlspace our local building inspector had seen. Or just get busy under the house... (probably what I would do).
If you decide to go with spray foam... shop around! I had quotes vary from $2400-$4000. (this was for about 770 square feet of area)
The newfangled way of doing it is called a "conditioned" crawl space. That's what we did on our place. Put down some sand, then the plastic membrane which got glued to the foundation walls with nasty poly caulking. Then we had a spray foam contractor come and spray the inside of the foundation walls with about 4" of foam.
We do not have any insulation in the floor.
Works great, but you do have to move some air.
Normally with a HVAC system you leave a large gap at the bottom of your interior doors to act as you return. In our house we have a vent to the crawl space in each room to act as the return. Then we have a HRV (heat recovery ventilator) that comes on intermittently and sucks stale are from the crawlspace, spits it outside, draws fresh air from outside and introduces it into the HVAC return air. This is a great thing to install if your house is pretty tight and you keep your windows closed during the seasonal extremes. It has a heat exchanger in it, so it splits the difference between the incoming and outgoing air... these things have been used for years on commercial buildings.
It is a neat system, so far has worked well for us. Electricity is pretty expensive out here, we've been pleased with our utility bills in the new house. Our July bill was about $90.00, for a 2500 square foot house, in a dry climate with seasonal extremes. (gets into the 100's in the summer).
You will probably have to get some sort of alternative building material variance permit, or something like that. Our house was the first conditioned crawlspace our local building inspector had seen. Or just get busy under the house... (probably what I would do).
If you decide to go with spray foam... shop around! I had quotes vary from $2400-$4000. (this was for about 770 square feet of area)
