LESLIE: Keith in Georgia is on the line with a crawlspace question. How can we help you?
KEITH: I’ve got about a 40s- or 50s-built home and my crawlspace is probably 18 or 20 inches. Really low.
TOM: OK.
KEITH: And listening to you all’s show, it says – you all said that you need to have some kind of a sealant on the dirt under there. Just wondering, any suggestions on a product that I could use to seal something with a small crawlspace layer?
TOM: Yeah. All you want to do, Keith, is just use polyethylene sheeting. Same kind of sheeting you might use as a drop cloth, perhaps a little bit thicker. And roll that out and lay it across the crawlspace floor. I always tell folks to make sure you kind of scan the floor first to make sure there’s no debris or anything that’s going to break through it.
But lay that sheeting out across the whole crawlspace floor. You can let it run up the walls a few inches just to get it in there nice and tight. And just having that sheeting on that dirt floor is going to stop a lot of the moisture that naturally will evaporate through that sand and soil, up into the house, and just make it a lot drier and nicer in that space. And it can also prevent mold and mildew from forming.
KEITH: OK. Thank you so much because I was trying to figure – I said, “Well, if I just lay it, it’s not going to seal it.”
TOM: No, it does a pretty good job. It just covers it up and stops the evaporation. You don’t have to – it’s not really that hard of a job to do. Just hardest part is getting the plastic in there and cut the size and just kind of getting it laid in there nice. So, if you start down one end and kind of work your way down, you should be good to go.
KEITH: OK. Alright. That’ll be great. I appreciate it.
TOM: You’re welcome, Keith.
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