How To Build a BETTER Crawlspace

foreign what's up guys I'm Matt Reisinger and I'm Wade baquin and on the build show today condition crawl space let's get going all right Wade we're visiting one of your jobs right here on a incredible lot right in the water we're talking about conditioned crawl spaces but first off before we get into the details on this condition crawl space why not a full basement for this house it's a great question Matt um so we are in an area that has a very high water table and that is mostly driven by the fact that there's a lot of ledge here uh and we know water likes to follow ledge uh so there's a couple things already going on here on the site that help mitigate that outside of the perimeter here of the foundation gotcha we've got what's called a curtain drain so on three sides of the property right the slopes down to the water so the sides and the back have a curtain drain to pick up the water table and help get that out but it's still really bad yeah and so we couldn't get a full depth basement in here we wanted a crawl space so we could get some of our duct work and some of the MEPS if you will down here and not have like a slab on grade I love a good crawl space and this is textbook waves this uh beam right here will have Joyce sitting up on top of it that I'm assuming and then on top of the mud seal is going to be top of plywood is that right yeah so we'll have some engineer joists going in this direction here that will sit flush with that PT okay and the plywood's going to come over the top of that got it so in other words you've got a solid three or four feet walk me through this concrete slab and how and when you put the slab in sure so you know this is one of our kind of trademark details I credit you with pioneering this approach thank you I don't know I don't know if someone else has done it before me but uh it's something we like to use often because it works so we've got our foundation in we've got that back filled we've set our subgrade here within the foundation compact gravel so anything virgin would have stayed where we're back filling in around the perimeter the over dig of the foundation is going to get the gravel compacted and then below the slab six inches of three quarter inch what we call around here crushed stone some people call that gravel or wash gravel basically you know three inch size kind of jagged Stone yeah that's compacted and then we come in and we apply that closed cell spray foam so we've got about on average two and a half inches gotcha underneath where we're standing on the slab it's all monolithic it comes up the sidewalls here in the foundation 12 to 18 inches we feather that out back to about you know half inch inch when we're weather tight we can continue the foam where we left off overlapping that continuing it from you know to be monolithic and carry that up to the underside of our subfloor that's beautiful so now this slab that we're standing on is floating on top of that on top of that closed cell but it's really I mean that closed cell is incredible very high 25 psi I believe it's very high way you're not going to move or squish or anything on this slab absolutely not the other beauty of this slab it means that you can clean this up for your clients and make this really nice down here and what I've done in the past is I've put a like a mechanics Creeper down in the basement so if I need to service anything yeah I can I can roll around with the flashlight and get into every corner and see exactly what it's looking like yeah absolutely the other thing I'm noticing which is correct no venting right you know most crawl spaces are pretty gross there's rats and raccoons and spiders and all kinds of stuff there's no vents to the outside so this this is in effect a short basement just like you build a basement just with not much head height it is yeah and because of this application it will stay dry which means we'll have good air which means it won't be your typical musty smelly basement yep um you know and worst case scenario if you have to throw a dehumidifier down here yeah so yeah you could just do a 300 plug-in one that you get at the hardware store or even like a Santa Fe if you want to do something on the you know higher nicer end sure but most likely not needed yeah I really like this way this is textbook okay before we leave I want to show you guys one other detail that Wade does on all his projects that I really like Wade walk me through your mud uh sill and how you're using this standard sill sealer but taking it to the next level sure so you know we use this a lot on most construction sites your capillary brake right but this connection right wood to concrete as you know is one of the most important connections on the home for sure it's an area that's prone to leaks for bugs and the bug path sure big time so what we do is um before anything goes down on top of the concrete we'll run a bead of you can use different types of sealants here we're using Big Stretch in the gray color and you're noticing where you guys did it down here they over over did it so you can kind of see what they did but they're putting a bead or two on the concrete first and then talk to me about this bead here that's kind of sticking out yep so that first bead goes on the about you know a half inch to an inch in from the face of the concrete the foundation face and then what the guys are doing is they're putting a bead on the underside of this PT then they're stapling the Seal Seal onto it so now you have this as one piece that they can control and put this down so it's nice and neat so now you have be so it's bead of sealant capillary brake beta sealant wood and then we Crank that down with the anchor bolts it makes a nice little sealant sandwich and we're nice and airtight and you've got a little bit of squeeze out right here that you know that Ivan and the crew did it really nice job by your guys yep you know that it's nice and compressed down in there and you have a nice tight seal and no matter whether you're doing a crawl space condition crawl space a basement that's a great detail to wait and see what it all has happened and it's not expensive you know a case or so of the this for a foundation this size it's it's peanuts in the in the overall budget for the project and what you get out of it is obviously a tremendous amount of value Last Detail I want to point out too uh Ivan the framer where his PT seal is coming up against this wall here he also put it on the end of the board where it's coming into the foundation so he's thinking about those details you've obviously taught them the reason behind it not just saying hey do this detail right you got a smart framer who knows what he's like we went over those details and we I certainly did remind him where we have some of those vertical connections that we want to make sure we're getting sealant there as well yeah good work dude love it thank you guys if you're not following Wade over on buildshownetwork.com you should go check out his videos and we're also filming a house that Wade is building on Block Island which is about 12 miles off the coast here and it's the building on an island series we've got two episodes left so you've got 15 episodes to catch up on I'll put a link in the description to the building on an island series over on buildshonenetwork.com well you know about we close it out you know my signature right I bought it once or twice follow us on Tick Tock or Instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 81,921

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build

Id: ufwoJpdnlZs

Length: 7min 23sec (443 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 04 2023