In 20 years, I haven't seen weather this cold and severe... 2 thoughts - 1 ot: where are the climate change people now?? I guess we won't see them until next summer or maybe they're vacationing with lead activities John Kerry on his private jet somewhere far away....

I heat primarily with wood, sooooooo basically I destroy the environment to combat the cold during global warming. Very strange world indeed.

It won’t do you much good now, but lot piggyback off of NE, the best way to protect the crawl space is to encapsulate it. Seal off all but one exterior vent with rigid foam, insulate exterior crawl space walls with rigid foam, remove all fiberglass insulation from under the floors, and properly install a vapor barrier.

On the one uninsulated vent, install a small 100 cfm exhaust fan to pull conditioned air from the house into the crawl. This will maintain the crawl space temperature the same as the living space’s.

It is brutally cold here.

I’ve text all tenants to leave cabinet doors open and let hot and cold faucets have a steady stream of water.

You could use heat tape but maybe to late for that.

Allow one heat /air vent loose under house to heat crawl space.

I have rerouted lines away from an outside wall with pex and wrapped them with heat tape plugged into a thermocube that turns on at 35F and off at 45F. Sealed basements and crawl spaces as much as possible. My 2 most vulnerable basements have non-vented natural gas heaters that go on when we see single digits.

Dave,

Brutally cold =

Single digit or lower.

Roy, for the last week the temps in Mo. haven’t been above 22, no pun intended. Lol

Today high of 12 with 6 to 9 inches of snow coming through the night into Sunday. Sunday high of 3 low -6

Monday’s forecast high 0 low -9 with windchill-20

Normal here we can have freezing temps for 3 maybe 4 days in a row and pipes can freeze but a much greater when temps don’t get above the freezing for 10 to 12 days in row. Our last few winters have not been to severe.

Our own house has a crawl space under one room, no exterior vents. The bottom of the crawl space was just the original soil, no barrier. Years ago, my kids and I ( and even the dog!) dug out the crawl space to create a storage space. My husband special ordered a very heavy plastic to put down as a vapor barrier, as we are in a high radon area. He ran the plastic up the sides too. On the underside of the floor above, he added fiberglass insulation. We laid down an old carpet in there just to cushion our knees when crawling in there, and have used that space as perfectly dry storage for some twenty years now. All the holiday decorations, camping gear, hand-me-downs we are saving for the grandkids go in there. Grandkids love getting the task of going in the crawl space to retrieve items.

We don’t have any closure over the entrance to the space, the only mechanicals in there is a small section of toilet stack ( about two feet ) and a heat duct for the room above.

On my one rental with a crawl space over an addition, I removed the one outside vent, put a cement block to permanently close the opening, tore all the old moldy insulation out. Smoothed the dirt bottom of the crawl space, got more of that heavy plastic crawl space liner online, and covered the floor and up the walls. The plastic is held in place on the walls with plastic clips that I ordered from the same company. I re-insulated the underside of the floor above with fiberglass, and tacked chicken wire to make sure the fiberglass batts didn’t fall. The one heat duct that runs through the crawl space was well-insulated with a foil backed fiberglass, and taped.

I do NOT want my tenants to use that space for storage, as I would expect they would damage the plastic liner ( the plastic keeps radon from seeping out of soil and into basement) AND I would assume tenants would leave stuff behind in a crawl space when moving. So, when I had the basement sill plate foamed, the company just plugged the opening with foam. There was an existing “door” fabricated from an old sign over the opening when I bought the house, which I caulked in place over the dried foam and painted to match the basement walls.

Only thing I wish I had done first was run doorbell wire to the back door that is one the room above. Drat! Going to have to poke a saw blade in the foam plug in the door opening at some time to get the back door wired for doorbell cameras. Someday...

#22, do your houses have basement and crawl space, or only crawl space? My thinking is if only crawl space, your treatment maybe would be different than those of us with crawl space connected to a basement.

Temperature here are bitterly cold. Up here in Wisconsin, I consider bittery cold to be 20 below or colder. The worst is when we have below zero with a wind chill which can be 20 to 30 below or colder.

I remember a couple years ago, we hit 45 to 50 below which does not normally happen. I was nervous for rental properties freezing up. The one had some issues catching up because it was abnormally cold. When it happened again this year for that one, I thought maybe the furnace was 20+ years old and needed replacement. Checked my records and it is only 9 years old. Filter just changed to a new one. Has to be insulation too low. If the furnace is working fine, it can't be the furnace and it should not need replacing at 9 yrs old.

#22,

Some stuff I have done...

#1 stop air leaks

#2 add heat

#3 Replumb with Uponor pex so the pipes don't break if they freeze.

Pile snow up against the foundation. Snow is a great insulator and also seals off air leaks...until it melts, but not melting soon.

Stapled heavy plastic on the bottom row of siding and buried the lowers edge in the snow to stop air leaks.

Old farm houses will staple plastic then stack straw bales against the foundation as insulation. The straw only helps if it is totally against the foundation - no tiny gaps. Mice love it in the summer so remove it.

Heat rises so the trick is to get heat DOWN under the home. I have simply removed heat ducts to fill the crawl with house air. Sometimes I can pull the floor vent cover and remove a screw or two, then drop the boot down.

In individual trouble spots I have poked holes in heat ducts to continually supply a small stream of warm arm in certain spots.

Open floor trapdoor hatches and angle a fan downward to blow house air into the crawl

Emergency only: VERY CAREFULLY place a small elec heater in the crawl ONLY IF clear of any wood, and a $10 fan to blow the warm air around in the crawl.

If we open the floors we glue rigid foam to the inside of the foundation and encase the crawl in heavy plastic, stapled up on the rim board and draped down to the dirt.

Go in the crawl during sunlight and spray foam any spot that shows light. A hole the size of a pencil can freeze pipes.

Obvious but often the simplest problem - loose crawl hates or vents.

Cold is a bear. It has no mercy.

BRAD

Some great ideas - thanks!

We've got a bunch of crawl space homes - they're my least favorite foundation type....

I sealed off a lot of crawl vents with foam and plastic, in an effort to reduce air intrusion.... in the future, I'll ponder having a vent and a damper to the crawl, to open for circumstances like this...also, I'll do as much as I can to not have hose bibs located near crawl vents and use some of these other ideas if we have freeze ups.... Good luck to everyone - thanks for the ideas!

The weather channel showed a video on how to keep pipes from freezing. Normal water pressure is 60 psi and once pipes start to freeze the pressure expands to 400 psi causing the pipes to burst from expanding ice molecules.

In short allowing the water to drip at the faucets brings the water pressure to 0.

How cold does it have to get up before your car will not start due to a frozen battery or something else?

Currently where I am in Iowa..... it is -9 with a wind-chill of -31.

-31.... Lord help us.

#22,

Lana beat me to it. I just added a heat light bulb to a suspicious spot. $5 for the bulb at Tractor Supply. $8 for the metal clamp light. Nothing to melt or burn.

Bulb gives out 400 degrees.

AND...

Turn up the hot tub...just to be safe.