Hello,
I live in middle Tennessee where the summers are long, hot and humid. My house has a crawl space under it with plastic sheeting spread as a moisture barrier. The house was built about thirty years ago. I have lived in it for twenty years. In that time I installed a ventilation fan in the doorway to the crawl space in an attempt to keep moisture levels lower by pulling air in through the vents and out the doorway. I get moisture from condensation on the air conditioning ducting. I have galvanized ducting that is insulated, but it still sweats some in the summer and drips down. Air flow is not good and the ventillation does not work well on the far side of the crawl space. In the winter there is hot air flowing through the ducting and the crawl space is much drier. Recently (winter time) I noticed that I have some powdery fungus growing on the floor joists. The wood has not been compromised as yet. It is a surface deposit. It is a white deposit near the doorway and a green deposit further into the space. Perhaps pulling humid outside air in has compounded my problem. I would like to hear from someone who has solved such a problem. As a short term measure, should I attempt to clean the floor joists? If so, how?
Thanks,
Doug
Replies
Go to crawlspaces.org and you will find tons of good, healthy crawlspace information.
As far as cleaning off what you already have it probably isn't worth the effort until you alleviate your air/moisture problem. If you clean it it will probably just come back. If you fix your overall moisture problem and then clean it will not come back period.
I guess my only concern would be if you were working under there to alleviate your moisture/air problem and you disturbed some of this junk on your joists it could be bad for your health. So maybe on second thought you should clean it off and then promptly fix your problem according to the above mentioned website. In some areas there are companies who specialize in cleaning and sealing crawlspaces if your not interested in doing it yourself.
Also, plastic simply laid on the floor of a crawspace does very little to block moisture coming from the soil below.
Edited 1/21/2006 5:26 pm ET by dogfish
Thanks for this information. I will check it out.
Doug