Vapor barrier installation in Pueblo CO - a crawl space covered wall to wall

Most calls start with cold floors over the crawl space, a damp or musty smell, or a look under the house that turned up bare dirt or an old sheet torn to ribbons. The price depends on how big the crawl space is and how much room there is to move down there. It also depends on whether old insulation and an old sheet need insulation removal first, and whether you keep the vents open or seal the space, since sealing means more taping and closing up. The schedule depends on any water that has to be fixed first and on whether your address needs a permit. We look at the space before we put a price on anything, so the estimate is for your crawl space and not a guess.

First we pull out what shouldn't stay, like old insulation hanging from the floor or a torn old sheet. Then we rake the dirt smooth and pick out the sharp stones that would poke through new plastic. Next we lay the sheet over as close to the whole floor as the space lets us, and we run it up the walls, piers and footings instead of stopping at the dirt, because the edges are where ground moisture gets around a sheet. If your crawl space is staying vented, that's a ground cover, and we'll call it a ground cover instead of selling it as more. If you're sealing it, we tape the seams, seal around pipes and piers, and close the vents once the equipment check is done.

A cold floor usually has help from the top of the house, because warm air leaking out up there pulls air up from below. That's why attic air sealing often belongs on the same list. If the walls or attic are thin too, retrofit insulation adds to what's already there without opening the house up. If you plan to insulate the crawl space walls, we keep plastic sheeting off the inside face of fiberglass there, because federal guidance warns it can trap moisture in the wall.

Which office handles building permits depends on where your house sits. Inside Pueblo, permits come from the Southern Colorado Building Department. Pueblo County handles the unincorporated areas, including Pueblo West. Whether a crawl space barrier needs a permit is a question for that office. So before we start, we find out which office covers your address and check. If the job needs a permit, we pull it and line up the inspection.

Under older houses here we usually find bare dirt or a thin sheet that every plumber since has torn through. Sometimes there's a mouse who stopped paying rent a while ago. We're based in Pueblo and do the same work in Colorado Springs and plenty of the cities around them, and the first job down there is usually cleaning up before anything new goes in.