Crawl Space Repair Case Studies: Crawl Space Encapsulation on Lopez Island

Jay and Debbie had their home built back in 2001. Jay visits his crawl space often and it wasn’t long after the home was built before he started noticing puddles of standing water developing in the space. Highly concerned about mold and mildew, they contacted Rainy Day Basement Systems before the problem could get any worse. They planned on living in the home for years to come and they were searching for a long term solution.

They began the job by cleaning out the space of all debris and leveling the ground out where possible. The crew then located the lowest spot in the space to install a TripleSafe sump pump. To do this, they excavate a large hole to place the sump pump basin. The basin is equipped with three automatic pumps to ensure the system is always working consistently and effectively. They can all work together or individually depending on the pumping demands. The sump basin is then surrounded by loose gravel to help filter the water absorbed directly from the ground.

The sump pump also collects water from the drainage trenching that was installed, which too receives water absorbed directly from the ground. This is accomplished by digging a trench all along the interior footing of the crawl space, installing a drainage pipe inside the trench and then filling the remaining space with loose gravel. The trenches are lined with filter fabric to avoid silt and dirt from reaching the pipe, which helps prevent against clogging and allows only ground water to enter the system.

Once the drainage was installed, the crew can begin the encapsulation process. They installed CleanSpace, a highly durable crawl space lining that is reinforced with seven layers including low and high density polyethylene and UltraFresh, an antimicrobial agent. Once the CleanSpace is installed, the crawl space is completely isolated from the earth below greatly reducing the amount of moisture allowed into the space. Finally, a SaniDry CX dehumidifier was installed to give Jay and Debbie the ultimate control over the environment of their crawl space.