Crawl spaces play an important role in keeping your home well-ventilated. They also provide ample space for electrical and plumbing repairs or maintenance. This is why their encapsulation is necessary.
However, you can’t just select any encapsulation service. In this post, we’ll go over various factors you need to keep in check before onboarding with an encapsulation service provider.
Important of Crawl Space & its Encapsulation in Your Home
Crawl spaces are often found in homes with a crawl space foundation. The main purpose of a crawl space is to provide your home with sufficient protection against flooding. The elevated structure makes it easier to protect your home from water damage.
The crawl space is the area between the base of your home and the ground. This area usually has a 3 ft – 4 ft difference between the base and the ground. Following are some of the benefits of a crawl space:
- Easy access to the electrical system. If your underground wiring has any issues, an electrician can easily get to the problem through the crawl space.
- Plumbing convenience. If your plumbing system runs through the basement floors, a crawl space provides enough for plumbers to fix issues without affecting your basement floors.
- Moisture damage. Since your home isn’t sitting on a soil bed, the base of your home stays free from any kind of moisture damage.
- Seamless ventilation. Your crawl space provides enough room for hot air to escape. This naturally promotes ventilation around your home.
Now, let’s see why you need to encapsulate your home’s crawl space.
- Pest control. Dark and moist spaces are ideal for bugs, insects, and other bug. Encapsulation acts as a barrier against these pests that can otherwise damage your foundation.
- Vapor resistance. Crawl spaces can often collect moisture through vapors in the atmosphere. This can lead to weak foundations. Encapsulation prevents it entirely.
- Energy efficiency. Your home’s basement is a factor in the loss of cooling and heating. Encapsulation insulates your base and keeps your energy bills in check.
Now you know why encapsulation is essential, let’s see how you should select a service provider for it.
Factors To Keep in Check While Selecting an Encapsulation Service
Just like any other service, encapsulation is a one-time investment. Once wrong move can turn into recurring issues. These issues are tough to deal with, financially and mentally. Here’s how you can find the perfect service provider for your crawl space encapsulation.
Evaluate The Company’s Reputation
The first and foremost thing you need to keep in check is the company’s reputation. You can conduct this research through various methods. In our opinion, it is the most crucial step in the right direction.
Why does the reputation of an encapsulation matter?
To put it simply, the track record of a company is an indication of their service quality. If a company has satisfied clients in the past with their service, there’s a guarantee you will get your money’s worth.
Reputation isn’t accumulated in a day. It takes time, experience, and consistency. All these are necessary when it comes to adequate crawl space encapsulation.
If your contractor has a somewhat uneven reputation, it is better to move on to the next option.
Ask For The Company’s Encapsulation Licenses & Insurance
The second thing you need to do is ask your service provider for their state-issued license. In some cases, multiple licenses are necessary for a company to have if they are to provide you with encapsulation services.
A professional encapsulation company should always be willing to provide you with the necessary license proofs. On top of that, these licenses indicate the level of expertise of your service provider.
Why is insurance necessary for encapsulation?
The insurance acts as a backup plan in case your property is damaged in any way by the service provider. Rather than you handling the repair costs, the insurance will pay for it.
This forces the encapsulation service provider to complete their project with professional diligence. You should always discard a service provider without insurance.
Look For Recommendations
Asking your friends, family, neighbors, or colleagues is an efficient way to shortlist such service providers. Word of mouth is easy to trust since it comes without any filters. You can even ask them to highlight specific aspects of their service providers.
However, it is also important to select the right people for recommendations. We suggest that you ask people around who have first-hand experience with the services you wish to acquire.
Check The Equipment Of Your Service Provider
The entire encapsulation process is carried out with the help of several manual and power tools. They streamline the whole process and ensure timely completion. However, these tools aren’t limited to installation.
Advanced tools like sum pumps and moisture meters are crucial for long-lasting encapsulation. A moisture meter enables you to monitor the level of moisture in your crawlspace. While sum pumps prevent water accumulation and stagnation.
It is a good practice to ask your service provider what kind of tools they use for encapsulation. This way, you can easily cross-check whether they are up-to-date with modern techniques.
Specialization in Crawl Space Encapsulation
You may come across service providers that claim to provide exceptional encapsulation along with numerous other services. There is a high chance that they aren’t experienced in proper encapsulation.
We highly recommend that you go for a service provider that only offers encapsulation services, Chances are, they have worked on far more encapsulation projects compared to others.
This way, you’ll get the desired results and might even some money along the way.
Explore Local Options
Local encapsulation service providers can protect your property far better than an outsider. This is not to undermine their expertise but the knowledge of the local environment goes a long way.
A local company can create tailor-made solutions to tackle your demands effectively. They’ll be well-versed in the soil conditions, moisture levels, overall climate, and building criteria.
All of this knowledge can translate into a perfect encapsulation of your home’s crawl space.
Inspection, Planning, And Execution
The time a contractor spends on inspecting and planning is proportional to the quality of the final results. A professional encapsulation service provider will spend a good chunk of their time in examining your crawl space.
Once they are satisfied with that, your contractor will provide you with an elaborate plan with transparent estimates. Their plans will also highlight all your demands and requirements effectively.
They will only execute the process once you are content with their planning. If they lack in any of the aforementioned aspects, they will likely leave something unattended.
Now, let’s see how an encapsulation can elevate your property’s value.
How Crawl Space Encapsulation Can Increase Your Home’s Value?
Encapsulation isn’t just for the safety of your property. It can also enhance the market value of your property by a significant margin. These important features of encapsulation play a direct part in this.
- Pest control provides a safe and clean environment for potential buyers. It also eliminates the need for a thorough pest removal service.
- Moisture damage prevention translates to the durability and longevity of your property.
- Proper ventilation makes it desirable for buyers with kids or elderly in their families.
- Energy efficiency achieved through encapsulation ensures potential buyers of low heating & cooling bills.
- A home already installed with encapsulation also removes the headache of the entire process for interested parties.
Conclusion:
This brings us to the finish line of our post on how to select the best crawl space encapsulation service. In our opinion, you should select a service provider with proper licenses, insurance, and a proven track record. Furthermore, you should also pay attention to their mode of operation. Checking off all these factors one by one will help you find the perfect fit for your home.
We hope this information helps you with the selection process. Let us know how you benefit from the crawl space in your home. We’ll also cover some frequently asked questions from other homeowners. Let’s dive right into it.