I live in the Seattle area where we don’t receive temperature/humidity extremes. I own a small house with a crawlspace that’s about 3′ in average height off the ground. The crawlspace is currently covered in plastic, but the plastic isn’t tied to the inside foundation wall. The rim joists are uninsulated, the crawlspace is vented to the outside, and underfloor insulation had been installed prior to me buying the house back in 1998. The underfloor insulation is fiberglass batts with the vapor barrier installed facing the ground (wrong way…)
I want to upgrade the insulation in the crawlspace by insulating the inside of the foundation walls with rigid foam and then bring in a contractor to apply closed cell foam at the rim joists. I’ve done some reading regarding insulation assemblies for crawlspaces, but the information seems more specific to the east coast or more extreme climates.
Some other info: the heating system returns are ducts that hang from and are built into the floor framing. Currently, you might call my crawlspace a “cold” crawlspace. Since the underfloor batts are installed upside down, I want to change/remove these in favor of a better system.
Any ideas? Again, the house isn’t big with a rough footprint of 25′ x 32′.
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What did you end up doing?
Four year old post, so we can only guess. Living in Seattle, here's my guess:
Couldn't find a decent spray foam contractor, sat in a cold house for another winter, had car broken into a half dozen times, got tired of sitting in horrible traffic while the tunnel to downtown was being built and read one too many real estate agent postcards showing how ridiculous the prices here have gotten, so decided to sell the little 800sf cottage for about a million bucks to a developer who tore it down and replaced it with a 20 unit "aPodment" building with no parking and now all his old neighbors curse his name while he sits on a pile of cash inside a new construction house in outer Snohomish County where there isn't much to do but at least he doesn't have to worry about his house being cold.