Crawl Space Humidity Myths Debunked

Moisture problems lurking beneath your home? Crawl Space Ninja Michael Church cuts through the confusion with this eye-opening compilation on crawl space humidity myths that could be damaging your home's foundation.

Have you been told that simply laying down a vapor barrier will solve your humidity problems? Michael reveals why this common "solution" falls short. What many contractors call a vapor barrier is actually a vapor retarder – it slows moisture migration but doesn't eliminate it completely. If someone has promised that plastic alone will maintain healthy humidity levels under your home, you've been misled.

Another dangerous misconception Michael addresses is that removing standing water or adding ventilation fans will control humidity. While drainage solutions like trenches and sump pumps are important, they don't address the continuous moisture evaporation from soil. Even more concerning, adding fans in humid climates actually introduces more moisture to your crawl space, potentially worsening your problems instead of solving them.

The truth? Dehumidification is the only reliable method for controlling crawl space humidity. When combined with proper moisture barriers and drainage solutions, a quality dehumidifier creates the comprehensive system your home needs for protection against mold, rot, and structural damage.

Want to learn more about protecting your home's foundation? Michael's book covers additional humidity myths, waterproofing misconceptions, and practical solutions for homeowners. Check out the buymeacoffee link in the description to grab your copy or schedule a personal consultation with Michael himself. Your home's foundation is too important to trust to myths and half-measures!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Book Promotion
• 1:05 Myth: Vapor Barriers Control Humidity
• 1:37 Myth: Removing Standing Water Controls Humidity
• 2:16 Myth: Fans Control Relative Humidity

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Hey, michael Church, crawl Space Ninja. A few years ago I put together 13 videos about crawl space myths that we run across every day in our industry and I decided to make a compilation of the ones about humidity that you can watch, where I took out the intros and the outros, so you can watch all three of them together in this video. But I wanna encourage you, if you get a chance, to check out my book, because there's a lot more humidity myths in the book, along with waterproofing myths, dehumidifier myths, french drain myths, things like that. So if you get a chance, check it out. It's available on the buymeacoffeecom website. That's a link down below in the description if you want to check that out. Also, stay tuned to the end if you want to see all 13 of the videos. I'm going to have a playlist available for you at the end, but check out the buymeacoffeepage. You can get a consultation with me if you like, or you can pick up the book either autographed or in a PDF form, and also have the Spanish version available here. So let's check out these three myths.

Speaker 0: 1:05

Does installing the vapor barrier control humidity? Yes, but it doesn't do it enough. The vapor barrier is not necessarily a barrier. It's actually a retarder. A vapor retarder keeps the humidity behind the vapor barrier but it will eventually escape through the seams and all that kind of stuff. So if somebody comes in and tells you that I'm going to put a vapor barrier down in your crawl space, mr Jones, and your humidity is going to be under 60%, that's not true. That's a myth.

Speaker 0: 1:37

Removing standing water does it control humidity? Removal of standing water alone does not control humidity. I can't tell you how many times we talked to homeowners that have paid somebody to install a trench and a sump pump and they were told that that would lower the humidity so they wouldn't grow mold on the joists. Well, that's not true. The only way really to control humidity is what A dehumidifier. Now, of course the dehumidifier will run less if the standing water has been addressed properly.

Speaker 0: 2:10

But removing standing water alone does not control humidity. So we call that a big myth out there in the crawl space world. Does adding fans control relative humidity? I can't tell you how many times I've been in front of a homeowner and they say well, crawl space encapsulation company A said all I needed to do was put in more vent fans in the crawl space and I would get rid of all of the high humidity in the crawl space. That's a myth. Now, if you live in a climate where you have a low outside humidity all the time and you have a fan pulling that outside air into a crawl space that's high in humidity, then that is true. But most of our climate here in the south is high outside humidity, so adding more fans will only bring in more humidity into the crawl space. So we're going to label that as a myth that installing crawl space fans alone controls humidity.