Don’t let mold grow inside your home or office!
If you look at the homes around you in Research Triangle Park, NC, you may find a vented crawl space. Did you recently move into a Durham County home, or have you lived in it for a while? Either way, you may not know whether you have a sealed crawl space. Also, the most important part is knowing whether you need one if you don’t have it. While they were once standard in many homes, are they still required? And if you don’t have a vented crawl space, should you get one?
Sealed Solution can help you learn all you need to know about vented crawl spaces and whether your Research Triangle Park, NC home needs it. Below, we’ll discuss how to tell if you have one, how they work, the benefits, if you should close your vents, and if you should inspect them. For everything that you need to know about a vented crawl space and crawl space insulation, keep on reading.
Do You Have a Vented Crawl Space?
Do you know if you have a vented crawl space in your home? Before considering the advantages or disadvantages of a vented crawl space, you need to determine if you have one yet. A few factors affect whether you have vents in your crawl space. For one, your location plays a role. If you live in a humid area that often has wet soil, your home may have a crawl space.
Also, older homes often had vented crawl spaces. You will most likely have vents if you live in a house built during the 1950s. Back then, crawl space vents were mandatory. So unless a previous owner removed the vents, you most likely have them in your home.
What’s the Purpose of Venting?
It’s clear to see that venting was essential back in the 1950s since it was mandatory, but what is its purpose? The last thing you want in your home is a completely enclosed area. You risk water getting into the enclosed area if you have a home without crawl space insulation or vents. Also, vents or insulation help your home regulate temperature. Before insulation became widely used, vents were the top way people kept their homes at a comfortable temperature. With vents, their home could be cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
To properly regulate air, you need a controlled environment. That’s why crawl spaces utilize venting, insulation, vapor barriers, and more. Having these aspects keeps out unwanted things—like water and pests—and keeps everything else inside.
Does Ventilation Work?
However, does ventilation work? While they were popular for a long time, many people have recently turned their noses up to vents. However, they often have a good reason for it. The goal of vents is to allow air to circulate throughout the crawl space and lower moisture levels. However, it seems that they do the opposite. Some contractors believe that vents cause these problems rather than stop them.
Vents originally entered homes to prevent mold growth. However, homes with vented crawl spaces can see mold, rusting, and corrosion. Why is that? Vents take air from outside, which is often a different temperature than that in your house. This temperature variation can cause condensation, leading to mold growth and other issues. Therefore, many contractors would rather install crawl space insulation in your Research Triangle Park, NC home instead of vents.
Not every contractor believes this, though. There are two sides of the coin with the argument over whether a vented crawl space works. In many areas, local codes dictate whether your home can ditch the vent. Before considering whether you want a ventless crawl space, you should look up local codes in Durham County or ask Sealed Solution to see if your home requires vents.
Mold Problems
As we previously mentioned, a vented crawl space can cause mold problems, even though they aim to prevent them. That may not sound like an issue, but you need to remember the damages that mold can do to your health and house. Mold can cause allergy-like symptoms, such as a runny nose, coughing, and a sore throat. It can also cause many respiratory issues, especially after long-term exposure.
Mold growth can also cause wood to deteriorate, which you want to avoid in your crawl space. So mold can negatively impact your house and cause your home to deteriorate. No one wants that.
Affect Your Home’s Air Quality
Ventilation also affects your home’s air quality. Air circulates from your crawl space up through the rest of your house. Therefore, if you have mold issues or bad air quality in your crawl space, that air will make its way up to the top floor of your house, infecting every inch.
When Should You Close Off Your Vents?
If you do have a vented crawl space in Durham County, should you close off the vents? This answer, just as the previous one, will vary based on who you ask. However, if you worry about mold growth or poor air quality in your home, you should close off the vents. This will keep cool outside air from coming in, forming condensation with the warm air in your house.
If you want to remove the vents in your crawl space but can’t due to the codes in Research Triangle Park, NC, you should close them instead.
Should You Inspect Your Vents?
If you do have a vented crawl space, should you inspect the vents? Like any area of your home, you should inspect it to ensure everything works as it should. This is essential if you leave your vents open to know if any damage starts to appear in your crawl space. If you want to hire a professional to inspect your crawl space, call Sealed Solution. We work with vents and crawl space insulation.
Hopefully, you now know a bit more about whether you have a vented crawl space and some complications that can come from them. Remember to review the Durham County codes and talk to Sealed Solution about whether you should keep your vented crawl space. Call us at 919-302-1081 for more information.
Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States. It is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, or more properly, for the three major research universities in them: North Carolina State University, Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill respectively. The Research Triangle region of North Carolina received its name as an extension of the name of the park. Aside from the three anchor cities, the park is also bounded by the communities of Morrisville and Cary. Approximately one fourth of the Park’s territory lies in Wake County, but the majority of its land is in Durham County.
Following World War II, North Carolina’s economy could no longer depend upon their traditional industries of agriculture, textiles, and furniture; their market share was in decline with jobs disappearing. Academics at N.C. State and Duke University came up with the idea of creating the park so that the universities could do research together, leverage the area’s strengths, and keep graduates in the state.
Established in 1959, Research Triangle Park was created to increase innovation in the area. It is central to Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At first, the park struggled to recruit innovators, but in 1965, Research Triangle Park had its largest surge of growth thanks to heavy recruiting by the state’s government and Archibald ‘Archie’ Davis. In their article ‘The Growth of Research Triangle Park,’ Link and Scott posit that entrepreneurial culture and leadership contributed the most to its success as a cluster. Archie Davis promoted a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship by locating the park near universities, actively recruiting organizations (like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), and used his vision to raise funding for the park.
Davis strongly believed that profits could not be the only driver for creating the park and that the betterment of the community should be the key goal. ‘The love of this state … was the motivation for the Research Triangle idea,’ he said. ‘Research Triangle is a manifestation of what North Carolina is all about.’ Research Triangle Park remains a nonprofit.
Learn more about Research Triangle Park.
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