Crawlspace moisture

[Airstream]

How high is the crawl space? If it is tall enough (4’), I would get someone to pour cement on the floor of your crawl space with a vapor barrier underneath it. If that is possible. Where I lived before in Wisconsin there were lots of crawl spaces. This was due to the rocky soil and the high cost of building basements. All the crawl spaces that had dirt floors had moisture issues. You could smell it when you went down in them. Those that had cement floors were good to go. A cement floor is going to cost more than $2,000, but your crawl space would be dry. Frankly I wouldn’t buy a house without a cement floor in the crawl space after what I have seen over the years. As to a market adjustment, I’d probably adjust whatever a reasonable fix and cost it would take to fix which would depend upon the size of the house. P.S. in Wisconsin (at least where I lived) you can’t build a new house with a crawl space without a cement floor in the crawl space. And all new construction crawl spaces are 4’ high.

 

[Sadie]

We had buyers for our home, we were beyond inspections and moving towards closing when they backed out of the deal causing a cascading situation which royally screwed us. The home inspector noted minor mold or fungus under the home. The home is in NC, so this isn't all too uncommon. We agreed to give the buyers 2k back to help remediate the crawlspace at closing. Now that they have backed out of course we have to disclose what we know about the mold/fungus. I have had several quotes to remediate it and they have been all across the board. They backed out due to a medical issue and not the home. There are a couple of different routes we could take with this. We could A: spray mold/fungus replace damaged insulation/install a vapor barrier B: encapsulate fully the much more expensive option and treat the mold. I did some research on this forum and I didn't find much current information on how appraisers are treating this now. I was a certified appraiser 10 years ago so I understand values require market data to support and you must be careful what you say. What can you say about this? Will encapsulation be reflected in the market approach in this market area?

Plan A unless you think there is something abnormal going on.