Crawl Space Repair Case Studies: Insulating Rim Joists to Reduce Humidity, Bugs, & Cold Floors

A homeowner in Leesburg, VA wanted to reduce humidity, bugs, and cold floors in their home. Our Sales Person came out to inspect the home and found leaky and poorly insulated rim joists. The "rim joist" is the perimeter of the floor framing system along the exterior of the house. The joints and gaps between all the framing members allow for a lot of air leakage in the house. Rim joists are seldom insulated and never air-sealed. This air leakage can bring humidity into the home as well. High humidity causes many problems such as mold, odors, increased pests and insects such as termites, and higher air conditioning and heating costs. Airborne mold spores can aggravate allergies and asthma. 

To properly insulate the rim joists, two-part expanding spray foam is installed on the rim joist and over the sill plate to seal all air leaks. 3 Pros Basement Systems spray foam has a high insulation value per inch and because it expands, it seals all cracks, gaps, and joints where air from the outside enters the home. Our production crew also installed our SaniDry Sedona. This is a powerful but energy-efficient dehumidification and air filtration system in one unit. It's able to remove an incredible 100 pints of water per day and using only 5.9 amps of electricity, the SaniDry Sedona drains automatically to a sump or the outside with a condensate pump. Mold doesn't have a chance and automatic control is easy- set it to 55% RH and forget it. The SaniDry does the rest and there are no buckets to empty!