[Greenbuilding] Crawlspace

[Stephen Collette]

Hello Leslie and all,

I would agree with Dan that yes, the vapour barrier on the soil can lead to worse issues if you have a plumbing leak or catastrophic water failure. I see those all the time. Makes kind of like a bowl of wet fibreglass soup usually, typically served cold.

The recommendation of a sump pit is a *fine* solution. All the vapour barrier runs to the lowest point in the space and is taped to the sides of the sump pit. Theoretically since the crawlspace floor is perfectly smooth with a nice slight grade, all water from all locations will drain into the pit and things will work smashingly well. 

In reality, it ponds. So unless your plumbing is all kind of close, which it’s not since it’s a ranch, and you could put the sump under the main plumbing location, this would work. 

Go with the water alarms. They just need electricity.

Stephen

Stephen Collette BBEC, LEED AP, BSSO
Your Healthy House - Indoor Environmental Testing & Building Consulting
http://www.yourhealthyhouse.ca <http://www.yourhealthyhouse.ca/>
stephen at yourhealthyhouse.ca <mailto:stephen at yourhealthyhouse.ca>
705.652.5159



> On Jan 14, 2015, at 2:00 PM, greenbuilding-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:
> 
> Our plumbing runs are in the crawlspace and we had a bad plumbing 
> leak there last year.  The kitchen sink drain became unhooked from the 
> main drain pipe (or was never hooked up well to begin with) and was 
> leaking water and some food waste under there for at least a 
> year--probably longer.  Not helped by the fact that our septic was also 
> backing up, we think.  It all got fixed when we did the addition and 
> renovated both bathrooms (and did work on our septic lines), but the way 
> we knew it was leaking was the smell coming from the crawlspace vents.  
> And we had a great deal of difficulty finding a plumber willing to get 
> under there and fix it. Anyway--if we have plumbing problems again--even 
> a small leak--with a vapor barrier down there, isn't it going to create 
> a swimming pool?  How would we know?

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