Many homeowners view inspections as a pointless way to spend precious dollars. Some might understand the importance of routine inspections but decide to go about the DIY option. Whether you choose DIY or hiring a professional, inspections are crucial to keeping a healthy home.
Timing
A crawl space is purposefully located in an area that has less foot traffic than other areas of the house. This means that any problem arising from a crawl space is likely to go on undetected for long periods of time. Homeowners don’t like looking down there, and that is not surprising with the weird smells and dark lighting. Most of the time, crawl spaces are around one to three feet tall, so there’s no reason to go down there even for storage.
Even still, checking your crawl space is a great way to find problem signs and identify issues before they get out of control. No matter how unappealing, you should inspect your crawl space once every six to 12 months. If you’ve recently had a storm or are noticing an uptick in your electricity bill, then peek down there for a look right away. If you’ve had issues with your crawl space in the past, or your home is already vulnerable to mold, do this once every two to three months. Certain signs won’t develop immediately, so checking more often will let you catch what hadn’t yet properly manifested before.
Signs
Checking for odd smells, visible damage, and standing water can help you better inform an expert if you need to call for repairs or consultations. You can also look for cracks that are wide enough to fit a credit card into. If you see any damage to your crawl space encapsulation, like a torn vapor barrier, you can get in touch with a professional right away.
Of course, it’s best to match this to an expert inspection every year. Without the experience and tools a professional has, it’s easy to overlook smaller issues or even misdiagnose what you’re seeing. For example, finding standing water could make you blame a leaking pipe when it’s really an issue with your soil. You could also misdiagnose different kinds of wood rot as black mold, which can lead to you applying the wrong solutions, letting the problem get out of hand in the meantime.