Crawl space repair in CA

Clean CrawlSpace Continues Teaching Program for Home Inspectors

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:36:21 -0400

Clean Crawlspace continues to provide expert knowledge and training on identifying moisture issues in the bay area for CREIA home inspectors. Clean CrawlSpace’s Marketing Director, Scott Smith, a certified Moisture Control Specialist with a background in home inspections, understands that current training is vital for inspectors to understand and communicate to their clients the conditions that are discovered.

Smith’s presentation, entitled “Identifying Moisture Issues When There is no Standing Water,” has been well received at the Greater Sacramento and Golden Gate Chapters of CREIA. Understanding the “Stack Effect”–how moisture migrates through a structure–and photo examples of what to look for, gives inspectors tools to accurately report their findings.

“The more professionals that understand the damaging effects of moisture under a home and are able to communicate that to their clients, the healthier the owners will be and the structure will suffer far less damage by having experts seal the space and isolate the dirt from the structure,” Smith said.

Clean CrawlSpace’s highly trained staff is available to answer your crawlspace moisture questions and provide a no-obligation inspection. Smith is available to speak at your next event about the damaging effects of moisture on your home, your health and your wallet. He can be reached at scott@cleancrawlspace.com

Clean CrawlSpace Inc Sponsors Novato Festival

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:37:35 -0400

Clean CrawlSpace, Inc., in Santa Rosa, California, was a sponsor of this year’s Novato Festival of Art, Wine and Music in Novato, California.

The free annual festival took place June 11 and 12. It featured 200 arts-and-crafts booths, food vendors, a wine garden, children’s area and live music. This was the 28th year of the Bay Area festival.

As a sponsor, Clean CrawlSpace was mentioned in press coverage of the festival. Sponsoring a local event is a great way to get your company’s name out to your community!

Bay Area Expert Leads Crawl Space Moisture Meeting with Marin County Codes Advisory Board

Mon, 02 May 2011 04:19:01 -0400

Santa Rosa, CA A local crawl space repair expert of Clean CrawlSpace, Inc. has led a Q & A discussion with the Marin County Codes Advisory Board regarding an effective and reliable moisture reduction alternative to crawl space ventilation consisting of crawlspace encapsulation, vent sealing and moisture control.

Scott Smith, marketing director and moisture control specialist, led the meeting on April 20, 2011. As per request, architects, engineers and code officials in attendance offered insight on the topics while Smith used a customized PowerPoint to guide the discussion.

The gathering centralized around these five topic questions and how to utilize sump pump systems, specifically the patented SaniDry dehumidifier and Crawl-o-Sphere to maintain a safer and healthier crawl space.

1. Are there code differences for a crawlspace and a basement?

2. If a crawlspace is isolated from the dirt earth, why is venting still required?

3. Why do basements not have venting requirements?

4. Why new construction should be required to isolate the house from the earth.

5. Why crawlspace encapsulation should be part of obtaining a green certification on all new/remodel work.

The meeting successfully accumulated ideas and knowledge from all present, and has yet to ignite any change in code though time can only tell the true affects of the meeting.

About Clean CrawlSpace, Inc.

With 38 years of combined experience between the company owner and CFO, Clean CrawlSpace, Inc. exemplifies exactly what it means to be the local authority in crawl space repair -specifically moisture control.

Contact them today for a free estimate to reduce moisture in a local Bay Area wet crawl space.

Crawl Space Repair in California fix a Crawl Space The Green Way

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:10:27 -0500

Crawl Space Repair in California:

How to fix a Crawl Space Once and For All (The Green Way!)

In the crawl space repair business, we’ve been calling vented crawl spaces a “housing epidemic” for well over a decade. And this is by no means an exaggeration. The money that is lost in crawl spaces because of the vents and a bare concrete or dirt wall is enormous. Go ahead and do a quick self diagnosis of your crawl space right now.

Symptoms of a vented crawl space in need of your attention include any or all of the following:

•    Sagging or uneven floors where the crawl space and first floor meet.
•    High heating bills in the winter
•    High cooling bills in the summer
•    Infestations of pests, including termites, carpenter ants, and mice
•    Rotting crawl space wood
•    Symptoms of respiratory discomfort of the home’s inhabitants, including coughing, runny noses, sore throats, skin and eye irritation, and other ailments that seem to go away once leaving the building for a few hours.
•    Crawl Space Mold

If you have a vented crawl space, you probably have at least some of these problems. If you don’t have any problems yet, you most likely will within the next few years. Simply put: crawl space vents don’t work. If they did, would crawlspaces be rotting all over the country?
The Making of a Moldy Crawl Space

It all starts with your vents. Here’s the scoop: In damp, foggy, or rainy weather, you’re trying to dry your basement with wet air. In the winter, you’re letting cold air into your crawl space- where it not only washes through your crawl space but also comes in contact with furnaces, water heaters, hot water pipes, heating ducts, and other utilities. Cold air plus warm utilities? Who’s paying for that?

The most insidious damage, however, comes in the summer. Hot air- even humid hot air- rises. (Did you know that wet air is actually lighter than dry air? This is why we have clouds and rain falls from the sky.) In a home, it rises upwards, leaving through the attic and upper levels. Guess where it enters from?

So vented crawl spaces pull humid summer air into the home and send it upwards, where the air conditioner has to work extra hard to cool it (humid air is more expensive to cool than dry air). And as hot, humid summer air flows into the earth-cooled subterranean crawlspace, its temperature drops. As air cools, its relative humidity rises by 2.2 degrees for every degree it cools. So if the air has 70% relative humidity, even a drop in temperature of 15 degrees is going to mean that condensation will form on everything in the crawlspace.

Condensation is the start of a lot of problems encountered in the crawl space. As it forms on wooden structures, the moisture encourages termites and carpenter ants (which are much smaller than the openings in crawl space vents) who thrive on wet wood. Damp moldy wood also introduces other pests and unwanted health hazards, including mold, dry rot, brown rot, mildew, beetles, crickets, silverfish…
Good Medicine for Rotten Crawl Spaces

So what can you do? Seal those nasty crawl space vents. Install a moisture barrier on the walls- even if they’re concrete- to keep moisture from seeping through and being trapped in the crawl space. Install a dehumidifier in the space to dry out the wet wood and to keep away any future humidity. The results? A healthier home, lower energy bills, and a crawl space that will not rot and need repairs again in a few years: a very ‘green’ way to lower the energy consumption of your house.

Are you ready for a better home? Call or e-mail Clean Crawl Space of California today for a free, no-obligation estimate on crawl space encapsulation and repair in your home. They have a great reputation in the local community and serve locally in areas like San Francisco, Oakland, Salinas in California.

Clean CrawlSpace gets a website upgrade!

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:31:40 -0500

Clean Crawlspace launches their new website with the intention of better serving their bay area customers.