live in east tennessee and have a new home. in the crawl area of the house a vapor barrier has been layed. when i picked up on the vapor barrier the ground was all damp. is this normal and if not how can i take care of it. im worried about mold and mildew and will this become a problem if not taken care of….. thanks in advance
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It could be normal, depends on your soil types and local area conditions.
Be sure you have positive grading, sloping away from the house and good downspout extensions 6' - 10' long (get them past the overdig area) and that there aren't other sources of water moving towards the house.
The plastic is to keep that very mosituire out of the crawl space and thus out of the house.
In my area it's unusual for there to be any significant mold growth under crawl space vapor barriers, even with wet soil; I suspect because of the relative lack of oxygen.
You might consider hiring a home inspector to check the crawl and the exterior.
We home inspectors see (and think about) a lot of crawl spaces regularly; which gives us some basis on which to judge whether a particular crawl space has too much moisture at any given time.
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thanks for the info......i was really worried that i had a major problem under there. worms
quit normal. most new homes have a crawl space. most of the time you find 4 or6mil plastic in these places. withproper venting the crawl should stay at an acceptable humidity level. this plastic keeps most ofthe water moisture under it. of the 25 homes i have built in the last 5 years only 3 had what i would call dry crawls. of the other 22 the only time any mold was ever noticed , was whenthe crawl was not cleaned out of all the trash and wood.
Doug,
thanks for the response and help. I really thought I was in a mess. I feel alot better now. Worms
Get the new issue of FHB (#153, Feb/March). Will probably be on the newstand the end of this week or the next.
That have a detailed article on just this problem. But I have not had time to read it yet.