Crawl Space Vent Covers - Part of An Airtight Protection System
Thrasher offers crawl space vent covers to help protect your home from the outside air that affects the environment and safety of your crawl space, and ultimately, your home.
You breathe crawl space air, like it or not. As warm air rises in a home, it leaks out of the upper levels. New air must enter to replace the air that escaped. About half of the air escapes each hour out of the upper levels in a tight house. This creates a suction at the lower levels to draw in replacement air. In older, leaky homes, the air exchange rate can be as high as two full air exchanges per hour.
This stack effect creates airflow in your home from bottom to top. Air from the basement is drawn upward into the first floor and then to the second floor. Of course, it dilutes with other air in your home, but building scientists say that up to 50% of the air you breathe on the first floor is the air that came from the crawl space. If you have hot air heating with ductwork, the air mixes even more thoroughly throughout the house.
Therefore, whatever is in your crawl space air is in your house and affecting you, whether or not you spend any time in the crawl space. If there is high humidity downstairs, there is higher humidity upstairs than there would be otherwise. If there is mold in the crawl space, there are mold spores upstairs. If there are damp odors in your crawl space - you get the idea. Air leaking out causes air to leak in.
The idea behind vented crawl spaces- that we can expect air to flow in through vents on one side of the house and out through vents on the other side- is a bunch of nonsense. What happens is that air enters the vents in the front, enters the vents in the back and enters the vents on the sides, and then goes up!
Some say that on a windy day, the air flows through a crawl space via the vents. The problem is you would need wind every day for this to be effective. And then there's the downside: wind depressurizes the whole house, sucking the air out of it at a faster rate than it blows it in. This creates a need for more replacement air to make up for the air that is left. So we suck more air up from the vented crawl space on a windy day.
Besides, even if vents made airflow through a crawl space on a windy day, you would just be making warm, humid air or very cold airflow through your house faster because of the wind. Venting a crawl space doesn't make sense unless the outdoor air is 70 degrees F and 45% Relative humidity, day and night, all year long. So it doesn't make sense.
Air never rests. It is always in motion, and because of the "stack effect," it is continuously being drawn into your crawl space from the outside. Keeping it out will be a challenge because air can slip through the tiniest of cracks.
Now that you don't have to worry about any moisture from the earth because you've encapsulated your crawlspace with clean space, you don't need vents- they only made the problem worse and drained you of energy dollars every month. So let's seal them up!
Special CleanSpace vent covers from Basement Systems are designed to do the trick. They are plastic so they won't rust or rot, and they're gasketed for an airtight seal using fasteners drilled into the wall.
Venting crawl spaces has been well established as a bad idea. To control an indoor environment, you must stop letting uncontrolled (cold, hot, humid) outdoor air in. By encapsulating your crawl space with the CleanSpace system, you can cover and seal your vents.
CLEAN SPACE VENT COVERS -
Seal outside air
Are insulated
Will never come off
Never need paint
Are available in two different styles - the installer will choose the best one to fit your home
Stop letting uncontrolled outdoor air in with CleanSpace(R) Vent Covers.
Thrasher offers crawl space vent covers to help protect your home from the outside air that affects the environment and safety of your crawl space, and ultimately, your home.
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