Vapor barrier installation in Sparks NV - a crawl space floor covered edge to edge

Most calls start with a musty smell, cold floors, or plastic someone laid years ago that's now torn, bunched up or missing at the edges. The price mostly turns on how big the crawl space is, how much stored stuff and debris has to come out, how many walls and piers the cover has to wrap, whether there's water to deal with first, and whether you want a cover alone or a fully sealed crawl space. The schedule turns on those same things plus how easy it is to get in. I'll give you a figure for your house once I've been down there and looked. If the floors above stay cold even with a good cover, crawl space insulation is usually the next thing to look at.

I start by looking for water, because plastic over a wet floor just hides the problem until it shows up somewhere else. Then our crew clears out stored items and debris so the cover can lie on open ground, and we lay the plastic across the floor, overlap and tape the seams, and run it up the walls and around each pier instead of stopping at the open middle, since the edges are where a cover that only lies flat lets moisture get past. Where someone walks to reach the furnace, we add extra protection on that path so the plastic doesn't wear through the first time a technician crawls in.

The ground is only one end of the house. Warm air leaking out through gaps in the ceiling pulls air up from below, so attic air sealing is often the other half of the job. If an older house is thin on insulation in the walls or floors, retrofit insulation adds it without tearing out finished surfaces.

The City of Sparks issues building permits and says even small home improvement projects may need one. Its list of work that needs no permit names things like floor covering, cabinets and molding, and crawl space vapor barriers aren't on it, so it isn't settled that your job is exempt. Before we start, we check with the city or county office for your address, tell you what it asks for, and take care of the permit when your job needs one. Contractors are licensed by the State of Nevada, and the city points out that a state license doesn't mean a contractor is licensed in Sparks, so it's fair to ask about both before you hire anyone.

Radon is the other local reason to cover the ground. Nevada's radon program says it can come in through the foundation, has turned up at elevated levels in Nevada homes, and recommends testing every home, and a ground cover helps keep soil gases like it from rising into the house. The state also says high levels are easy to test for and relatively easy to bring down, so if you've never tested, it's worth knowing before the plastic goes in. We meet the same kinds of crawl spaces, from bare dirt to old torn plastic, on jobs in Reno and Spanish Springs.