Auto news on Youtube Jan 7 2018

Michael Church: Hey there, Michael Church with CrawlSpaceNinja.com, and we get questions

a lot about how much vapor barrier do I need to encapsulate my crawlspace?

Well, if you're a DIYer, you're gonna want to watch this video.

I'm gonna show you how to calculate exactly how much vapor barrier you are going to need,

and be sure to stay tuned to the end, because I've got a special Ebook that we're gonna

give away, and I want to tell you how to get it.

Thanks again for watching.

Okay, so let's jump right in.

Basically what I'm going to show you here is if you are trying to figure out how much

vapor barrier you need, there's a few things that you need to pay attention to, and hopefully

these pictures will help me explain.

First of all, I want you to notice that the ground is not level in this picture, okay?

So any time you're dealing with uneven, or un-level ground, you're going to use more

vapor barrier, okay?

So if you've got a lot of this going on in your crawlspace, you need to pay attention

to this.

Now what you can do is if you want to level it all out you can get some [inaudible 00:01:18]

gravel maybe, or some three-quarter inch stone, and fill in these little areas around the

pillar, and that'll help level it out, help save a little bit of the vapor barrier, and

even probably make it easier on you to install.

But I want you to notice something else about this, is this particular situation there was

water percolating up around the pillar, so this crawlspace needed a trench and sump pump

installed, and this is another picture of it here.

So if you've got these low valleys in between these pillars, it's a good place for water

to move, and sometimes just adding some gravel, some [inaudible 00:01:53] gravel, something

like that, to raise these valleys up and make it level is going to keep that water from

sitting in these valleys, and moving it, hopefully, to the outside, where you've got a trench

and sump pump if you're taking on a lot of standing water.

So just keep that in mind.

The other thing you've got to look at is how large are your pillars?

These are your basic eight inch block doubled up, so it's 16 around and then it's eight

high and eight high so it's 16.

So typically we go about two feet high, sometimes it will go higher, if the crawlspace is really

tall.

So these are some things you've got to figure out is calculate 16 by 16 by 16 by 16 by 24,

and that'll give you some parameters, as far as that goes.

So if you do that calculation, 16 on each of the four sides, by two feet tall, you're

looking at each side is going to take up approximately three square feet.

So if you've got four sides, that is about 12 square feet of vapor barrier, without any

excess, without going down in here, or anything like that.

So if we said that each pillar is say 30 square feet, that is a good indication of how much

vapor barrier you would need for each pillar.

So if you have 10 pillars, that's 300 square feet.

So let's move on to the next slide.

Right here, I want to show you a couple things.

Number one, this is the old vapor barrier.

See how it was not ... the plastic was not overlapped, and it was not taped.

So make sure that you overlap and tape the plastic in the crawlspace to keep it from

coming apart.

The more people, over the years, that crawl on the vapor barrier, the more it is going

to separate.

So we recommend a nine to 12 inch overlap, if you're using it as a radon barrier, you

have to go a minimum of 12 inches.

And you also have to use a polyurethane sealant to join the bottom and the top piece.

So if you're doing a radon system, make sure you check with your local radon codes for

that situation.

But if you're not doing a radon system, nine to 12 inches, with just your basic seam tape

is all you need.

And that's gonna be most people.

Over here you've got what appears to be a two foot wall.

Actually that's a shadow, so you've got probably closer to a three foot wall on this side,

30 inches of wall.

So if you've got mud caked up around the edge, that tells me that water is probably coming

through the foundation.

Again, good chance that we're gonna need to put in a trench along this wall that leads

to a sump pump.

But you've got to take this wall into consideration, so if you're going 30 inches high to cover

all this up, all that has to be calculated as well.

So I'm just showing you some basic things that you need to look at inside the crawlspace

whenever you're trying to figure out how much vapor barrier you are going to need.

Some people decide not to take the vapor barrier up the wall.

As you can see, they stopped it right here.

This is not a good idea, in this case, or this case, because you can see the water coming

through the cinder block.

This has got a efflorescence and different things getting going here, so there's a lot

of hydrostatic pressure behind this wall, pushing water through.

And what that's going to do, if you don't put the vapor barrier up the block, it's going

to make your dehumidifier run harder in the summertime, in your wet season, because your

crawlspace humidity is increasing.

The other thing to look out for is these little intrusions or outcroppings, depending on where

you're at.

These add to the square footage of the vapor barrier, 'cause you've got to make this turn

here, here, here, and here.

So they can't all be perfectly rectangular or square, so just keep that sort of thing

in mind.

So let's go to the next slide, and we'll try to do a calculation for you, on how much vapor

barrier you're going to need.

Now this is a 2,048 square foot crawlspace with six pillars, and we're going to pretend

that these pillars are square, even though they're not in the picture, in they are 16

by 16 by 16 by 16, and we're gonna go two feet high.

So if we've got 30 square feet is our calculation for each pillar, okay, you've got 30 square

feet, so that's going to be 30 times six is, what is that, 180 square feet.

There we go.

I still learned something, or remember from math class.

Okay, so we've got 180 square feet of ... let me see if I can get my pen, here.

Got 180 square feet for the pillars, okay?

And then we've got this wall is 32 feet, and this wall is 64 feet, okay?

So what you're gonna do there is you need to calculate how tall the wall is.

So let's say it's a four foot wall.

We got 32 times 4, so this wall is gonna be 128 square feet.

This wall is gonna be 128 square feet, and then we're also going ... and what I did was

I took the length times the height.

So you've got 4 feet times 64 feet.

This wall is 256 square feet, and this wall is 256.

Now remember that this wall, for example, our north wall could be seven feet tall, and

our south wall could be two feet tall.

So just keep that in mind.

But basically, it's length times height, so that gives you the square footage of the wall,

okay?

And then the floor is 2,048, so 2,048 square feet.

So we're gonna take that number, 2,048, plus 256, plus 256.

That covers the north and south walls, plus 128, plus 128, that covers the east and west

walls.

Plus 180 square feet for the pillars, so we're looking at a grand total, if everything goes

perfect, of 2,996 square feet.

Okay?

So here's what you've got to remember, though.

You're going to probably overlap here, and here, you're gonna have an overlap, okay?

So I would probably get an extra thousand square feet of plastic.

So in other words, this crawlspace would probably need 4,000 square feet of plastic to do this

job.

Oops, that's 400.

4,000 square feet of plastic.

So anyway, you're gonna have a lot of cuts.

Sometimes you're gonna have a pillar here.

You may have one over here.

Crawlspaces are always gonna be crazy.

But the point is, and you may want to go higher than two feet, remember that 30 square foot

per pillar is only going two feet tall.

And what I mean by that is if you look at this one, we actually went higher than two

feet, okay?

So here that's probably a three foot tall pillar.

The wall is taller, we had to go over the foam board here, which makes more slack in

it, and you can see, it's kind of hard to get it perfectly straight.

So you've got a lot of gaps and things like that in the plastic.

Here's a tape seam, here.

There's probably another one, here's a tape seam.

This has all been taped.

There's probably tape seams here, along this area.

So as you can imagine, by me saying that you need 4,000 square feet, in this photo, and

this example, I would rather you get a little bit too much vapor barrier, and then maybe

put an extra layer around the door.

So if your door is like right here, maybe this little section where people are gonna

be crawling in and out of the most, you put an extra layer underneath the main part, so

that way, you're doubling up in this area to give your knees and everything a little

bit of extra cushion, and give that vapor barrier, that high traffic area right there,

a little bit of extra protection.

So if you get too much, that's one thing you can do with the extra vapor barrier is put

this in your high traffic area.

If your HVAC unit is over here, and your HVAC person has to climb over here to get to it,

you could put a little extra vapor barrier in this whole area here to give your heating

and air company a little less wear and tear on that plastic.

So anyway, I hope this helps, and again, take a look.

This is a before, and this is an after.

So I hope this helps.

Hope you like this video, down below, and let me know if you have any questions.

And stay tuned for a little special I wanted to tell you about.

Well, I hope that helped you figure out how much vapor barrier you're going to need for

your crawlspace encapsulation.

And about that Ebook that I mentioned in the beginning.

If you'll check out the links below, in the description, we're gonna link you to our free

crawlspace encapsulation homeowner's guide.

So if you get a chance to go down there, it'll take you right to the website.

It'll have some tips and tricks in there for you to know how to encapsulate your crawlspace

properly, and also some inspection tips and even a coupon on there, about how to save

on any of the DIY products that your order through our website.

So thanks again for watching.

My name is Michael Church, with CrawlSpaceNinja.com, and I hope you make it a happy and blessed

day.

Thanks so much.