Q. This week: My five year old second home has a five foot tall crawl space with a concrete floor (copper and PVC pipes and ductwork are down there, and a suspended 80,000 BTU transverse furnace).

Finally examine the ventilation of the crawl space. This means the foundation vents. Make sure they aren't blocked by plantings and that there are enough of them. Here, more is better.

Saito advises, ‘Standard requirements commonly include ventilation and you need one square foot of vent space for every 150 square feet in the crawl space’. That calculation is with no vapor ...

Q-My house has an unfinished crawl space under an addition that was built some years ago. This past winter I noticed that many of the joists were damp with condensation and that the cement block ...

Beyond ventilation, take these additional steps to prevent moisture buildup in your crawl space: Fix any plumbing leaks. Keep gutters and downspouts clear and in good condition.

Q. We have a crawl space under the front of our house that, to our horror, had become a rat condo, unbeknownst to us until the odor of urine began to permeate the living space above. (We had not ...

As long as the ventilation to the crawl space is blocked, it can work well. But you need to fight the humidity intake of the space or you’ll run into problems quickly.

The International Building Code requires vented crawlspaces to have one square foot of ventilation per 150 square feet of crawl space area to obtain a 1/150 net free ventilation area, or NFVA.