Crawl spaces can provide benefits for a home, such as ease of access to plumbing and other utilities running beneath the floor. They can also, however, provide benefits to the type of pests you’d like to keep out of your crawl space, ranging from insects to rodents to even larger creatures. So how do you keep pests out of your crawl space?
Ways to Prevent Crawl Space Pest Infestations
1. Don’t Attract Pests To Your Home
Most people don’t knowingly attract insects and rodents to their home, but many do it unintentionally. Look around the exterior of your home’s foundation for things that could attract pests.
Among the common culprits are wood piles and organic debris, which can serve as sources of food or shelter for insects or small animals. Relocate the wood pile elsewhere and keep the area around your crawl space well-maintained.
2. Keep Your Crawl Space Dry
Crawl Spaces that aren’t properly waterproofed are prone to either flooding or at least high levels of humidity. This makes it attractive to pests for a number of different reasons.
Some, like silverfish, are naturally attracted to damp areas. In other cases, the presence of damp wood, especially rotting wood, can become attractive (termites are the most notorious example). Even those that aren’t attracted to the moisture itself can be attracted by the presence of smaller insects as a potential food source.
Dry crawl spaces are simply less attractive to the types of pests you are trying to avoid.
3. Seal Openings in the Crawl Space
Whether it be crawl space vents, cracks, or simply the ground beneath it, there are plenty of avenues for pests to enter. That is why sealing off your crawl space is so important. It can help both keep the crawl space dry and provide a barrier to pests entering.
A Good Place to Start: Crawl Space Encapsulation
We can’t help you with the first item on that list. It is all on you.
If you want to accomplish Nos. 2 and 3, however, crawl space encapsulation is a good place to start.
While it might involve more intensive waterproofing for crawl spaces with significant water problems, crawl space encapsulation does two things in all cases. The first is to seal off the crawl space. This is done to prevent moisture from entering. For instance, crawl space vents, originally designed to dissipate the moisture in crawl spaces, can instead act as a conduit for it in encapsulated crawl spaces if they are not sealed.
This has the added benefit of reducing the number of potential entrance points for pests.
Then, a tear-resistant vapor barrier is installed on both the floor and all crawl space walls, in addition to any piers or other supports that come up from the crawl space floor. This vapor barrier can keep moisture from entering the crawl space.
In total, these efforts, along with any other necessary waterproofing, can keep your crawl space dry and significantly less attractive to pests.
Interested in Crawl Space Encapsulation in Oklahoma? Contact Pierman Today
Pierman offers expert crawl space encapsulation services throughout our Oklahoma service area. If you are having issues with crawl space moisture or pest infestations, contact us today to learn more about our crawl space encapsulation services.
