How Can Crawl Space Damage Affect Your Home?

It isn’t always easy to determine whether your crawl space is in good condition. Often, you may want to know how this damage can even affect the rest of your home if it is so well hidden. 

• Foundation Failure 

If you do want to try and get a better idea of how your foundation is holding up, you’ll want to look at the conditions in your crawl space. Certain symptoms of damage will make themselves known throughout your home when something starts to go wrong, allowing you to react in an appropriate amount of time. Some of the most common signs of foundation failure to keep an eye out for include:  

• Stair-step cracks outside of your home  
• Horizontal or diagonal cracks inside of your basement or crawl space  
• Visibly wet soil around the perimeter of your home  
• Gaps between your ceiling and the walls
• Popping floor joists  
• Uneven floors  

Of course, these symptoms can also indicate that something’s wrong with your crawl space or basement, independent of the condition of your foundation. Luckily, professional contractors can help you identify these symptoms during an annual home inspection. You’ll want to work to distinguish the specificity of the damage you’re contending—by its hydrostatic pressure, tree roots, or another force—before investing in any repairs.  

• The Stack Effect  

Your crawl space is the starting point for the stack effect, which can utterly upend any comfort you experience living in your own home. You likely already know the basics of the stack effect. Under most circumstances, warmer air in your home moves up into the first and second floors instead of lingering down in your crawl space. That air tends to rise because it is not as dense as cooler air.  

However, as moisture settles in your crawl space, the amount of cool air in your home can create a pressure difference between the lower floors and the upper ones. When the pressure in your home falls out of balance, moisture-laden air can more readily make its way into the upper levels of your home, forcing that lighter, warmer air back outdoors. As that moisture-laden air makes its way into your first and second floors, you may find structural damage that was previously relegated to your crawl space and foundation appearing elsewhere in your space.