Why Do I Need to Protect My Crawl Space This Winter?

Your crawl space is one of the most sensitive parts of your home. Come the winter season, it can fall victim to all manner of water damage, even as the rain in your area turns into snow. Protecting your crawl space means warding off that damage and protecting your home’s value, not to mention your family’s health. 

• Water Damage and Your Home’s Market Value 

If moisture can make its way into your crawl space, it can pose a threat to the whole of your home’s structural integrity. That moisture can damage the structural supports in your crawl space while also making your home uncomfortable to live in. The stack effect, specifically, can direct unwanted moisture residing in your crawl space throughout the rest of your home and can, in turn, put the structural supports in other parts of your home at risk. 

If you want to put your home on the market at some point in the near future, you’ll want to make sure you’ve done as much as you can to keep that unwanted moisture out of your crawl space. If you let water damage spread over an extended period of time, then you risk losing up to 30 percent of your home’s market value, especially if you don’t choose to invest in repairs. 

• Water Damage and Your Family’s Health 

The same stack effect can put your family’s health at risk. Unwanted moisture throughout your home can aggravate some pre-existing conditions, eliciting allergic reactions or respiratory issues. Even folks without pre-existing conditions can develop allergies or related conditions if exposed to crawl space moisture for an extended period of time. 

These conditions can all pop up even without the presence of mold in your crawl space. If any mold spores manage to take root, you may find yourself facing health problems that are even more serious. Most types of mold, if allowed to flourish in your home, can cause health problems ranging from a persistent cough to long-term lung damage. The faster, then, you can work to prevent moisture from settling in your home, the better off you and your family will be.