DIY Crawl Space Guide: Inspecting Before Repairing Week 1

Crawl spaces are often neglected until serious problems develop, but proper inspection is the crucial first step toward creating a healthy home environment. In this opening episode of our Crawl Space Repair Challenge, Michael Church walks you through the complete process of conducting a professional-grade crawl space inspection—whether you're planning to DIY or hire a contractor.

Discover why relying on your senses alone can lead to missed problems as Michael explains how moisture, mold, and structural issues often hide in plain sight. Learn about the essential tools needed for a thorough inspection, including moisture meters that detect problems well before they become visible. The episode covers proper safety equipment, measurement techniques, and documentation methods that will give you a complete picture of your crawl space's condition.

Michael shares professional insights on what specific signs to look for during your inspection, including wood moisture levels, foundation wall dampness, mold indicators, insulation issues, and evidence of past water intrusion. You'll understand why taking accurate measurements and detailed photographs is critical for developing an effective repair strategy. The episode also introduces the Crawl Space Ninja inspection sheet—a comprehensive checklist designed to capture all the essential information needed to create your customized scope of work and materials list.

Ready to transform your crawl space into a clean, healthy space? Download our detailed inspection sheet, gather your findings, and connect with our DIY specialists who will help guide you through the entire repair process. Subscribe to follow our complete Crawl Space Repair Challenge series and gain the knowledge to tackle your project with confidence or effectively communicate with contractors.

Support the show

Check out Michael's book, "Crawl Space Repair Myths-Busted" now available on Amazon!

Schedule a consultation: https://buymeacoffee.com/csninja/extras

Need help: https://crawlspaceninja.com or https://diy.crawlspaceninja.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:00):
Hey, this is Michael Church, crawl Space Ninja, and I
am excited to bring you ourCrawl Space Repair Challenge.
This is week one, and whatwe're going to cover today is
inspecting your crawl space.
I am putting together a seriesof videos.
So far, I have 13 plus videosplanned out.
For all of you that are lookingto improve, correct repair,

(00:23):
waterproof encapsulate yourcrawl space, whether you want to
do it yourself or whether youwant to hire a contractor, this
is going to be great information.
So, if you're going to do ityourself, I'm going to show you
how to inspect your crawl spacetoday and what to look for.
But this might also be somegreat information for those of
you looking to hire a contractor, so that you know what they are

(00:44):
looking at while they are inyour crawl space.
So let's get started.
A quick overview of what we'regoing to discuss today are some
of the tools that you will needin order to inspect your crawl
space and where to get thosetools.
So, if you're planning on doingthis yourself, we have a lot of
these available on our DIYstore, or we might have some

(01:04):
Amazon links in the descriptionbelow to help you find those
tools quickly.
So make sure you check out thelinks below.
We are also going to give youaccess to a downloadable
inspection sheet that we havedeveloped that we're going to
make available at Buy Me ACoffee.
This is going to be a paiddownload of just $5.
Paid download of just fivedollars.

(01:27):
And this inspection sheet hassome great questions that you
should answer for our DIYspecialist to help you out, as
well as some things that youmust look for and some readings
and calculations that you shouldget inside the crawl space in
order to make sure that youdevelop a great materials list
and scope of work, and we'regoing to teach you what to look
for in the crawl space.
We're going to have you takethat information and submit that

(01:47):
, along with your findings, toour DIY specialist.
Now, if you want to take photos, we will have a way for you to
send us some photos, butnormally the inspection sheet is
all we will need, unless theDIY specialist would like to
have some photos to understandor reference what it is they're
looking at.
So they'll let you know if theyneed more photos or not.
We're going to help you developa material list so that you can

(02:11):
do this crawl space workyourself or, of course, if
you're going to hire acontractor, that's fine too, and
then we're going to help youdevelop a scope of work.
Now, keep in mind, we're goingto release more videos in this
series that will help you withthe scope of work, but if you
have a unique situation in yourcrawl space that you need some
additional help to make surethat we take care of every

(02:32):
problem in the crawl space takecare of every problem in the
crawl space we're going to tryto do everything we can to get
those answers for you, even ifwe need to do a consultation to
make that happen, with somepictures and going over
everything with you personally.
Now let's talk about some of thetools you're going to need in
order to do your inspection.
We always recommend you getsome of these great moisture
meters.

(02:52):
We have these available on ourDIY store.
These are to check humidity andwood moisture, as well as the
foundation wall moisture.
That's something that'soverlooked quite a bit is people
don't check the foundation wallmoisture, because that's a good
indication if you are taking onstanding water at some point in
the future.
And, of course, always dress forsafety.
You want to wear a Tyvek suit.

(03:13):
Unless you have a good pair ofcoveralls.
You want to wear a respiratorwe always recommend a full face
respirator as well as gloves,and you might need some
waterproof boots if your crawlspace is flooded a good
flashlight and a painter'shoodie that's a cloth hoodie
that you can get to put overyour head in order to protect
you from getting cobwebs ordifferent things like that.
Then you would put the fullrespirator over that or

(03:35):
different things like that.
Then you would put the fullrespirator over that.
One last thing I didn't put onthis list is a camera, because
we want you to take pictures ofeverything that you're
inspecting, in case the DIYspecialist needs access to those
pictures.
So make sure you check out thelinks below for all that.
Some other items you may wantto do are a laser measurer.
Now, one disadvantage of thatlaser pointer is that if there's

(03:55):
obstacles in the way, it's alittle difficult to properly
measure the crawl space,especially if your crawl space
is really short.
So you may want to get one ofthose wheels that you walk
around with I'll put links toall of this in the description
as well as, possibly, a thermalimaging camera or a laser
temperature reader.
That's a good way to see sometemperature changes in areas
that would indicate moistureintrusion.

(04:17):
So those might be a bit more ofan investment for you, but if
it helps you gather the correctinformation, you might want to
think about getting those aswell.
As I mentioned before, we'regoing to have an inspection
sheet available for you atbuymeacoffeecom, and what I'd
like for you to think about iswhile you're inspecting your
crawl space.
This inspection sheet isdesigned for you to write down

(04:39):
different things a lot of peopledon't think about, like, for
example, the inside perimeterand linear foot, the wall height
of the foundation wall, thewood moisture level of the wood,
the foundation wall moisturelevel, how many vents do you
have, how many pillars do youhave.
And don't overlook potentialfuture problems too.
You can't always go by yoursenses.

(04:59):
Whenever you are inspecting acrawl space and unfortunately a
lot of homeowners do thatThey'll say things like well, I
don't see any water, or itdoesn't feel damp, or I don't
notice any moisture.
Well, that's what the metersare designed to do is to help
you figure out if the wood isactually wet.
A lot of times you can't feelhumidity.
Now, if it's, you know, superhigh and you see a lot of

(05:19):
condensation in the crawl space.
Well, of course, you're goingto be able to notice that, but
the point is, you want to makesure that you use the meters and
use the inspection sheet inorder to get as much accurate
information as possible, alongwith your pictures, so that that
DIY specialist we're going toassign to you is able to help
you get that crawl spacecorrected as best as possible.

(05:41):
Before I move on, I know whatsome of you are thinking why
would we charge five dollars foran inspection sheet?
Well, believe it or not,whenever we ask homeowners to
provide certain information, itseems like they want to skip out
on that information, and itreally does hinder us in helping
you develop the right materialslist and scope of work.
So we feel like, by asking youfor a small five dollar donation

(06:03):
for our inspection sheet, itwill get you to understand the
importance of this inspectionsheet.
You don't have to use ours, youcan fill one out yourself.
Just make sure you provide asmuch information as possible and
all the information that we askfor, so that we can help you
develop a clean, healthy andworry-free crawl space.
While you're doing theinspection, make sure you pay
attention to mold in the crawlspace.

(06:26):
Now look at the image on thetop left.
There's a metal strap up therethat's rusted.
That dark color all over thewood is signs of mold, but not
all mold is as noticeable on thewood.
Now take a look at picturenumber two, where it's got the
moisture meter up against thewood.
Do you see the little dotsunder the insulation?
That could also potentially bemold.

(06:47):
Make sure that you're checkingfor falling insulation.
High moisture in the woodObviously you're going to need a
meter for that.
High moisture in the foundationwalls.
Standing water around the crawlspace, mud lines on the old
vapor barrier If you see mudlines, perhaps the crawl space
had flooded in the past.
Efflorescent on the foundationwall If you've got block or

(07:12):
concrete, you can haveefflorescence pushing through
the wall even though it's notactively taking on water, or
you're not seeing standing water.
Daylight at the sill plate andrim joists are also things
that'll indicate inefficienciesof a crawl space.
And then, of course, highhumidity with that moisture
meter.
So these are some of the thingsthat you're going to be looking
for that are on the inspectionsheet.
Make sure you take pictures.
These are good examples of thekind of pictures we like to see,

(07:34):
we like panoramic wide viewpictures, but sometimes you need
to get a little closer and giveus a snapshot of that moisture
meter or perhaps that fallinginsulation, to help us
understand exactly what needs tobe done and how long a drying
process may take in the future.
Now that moisture meter in thatwood only goes to 53%, you can
see there's green lights, yellowlights and red lights.

(07:56):
If it's above 53% wet, we haveno way of knowing that.
So we did a job that took ussix weeks to dry the wood to
where we could treat the moldbecause of how damp the wood was
.
But the meters are still agreat way for us to figure all
that out for you and to help youdo your own crawl space.
Once you have your inspectiondone and you've got the photos,

(08:16):
I'd like for you to submit thatinformation to our DIY
specialist.
This way it gives us theability to go over your
inspection with you and help puttogether that materials list
and eventually that scope ofwork.
You can do this one of two ways.
You can submit your picturesand inspection sheet to

(08:37):
customerservice atcrawlspaceninjacom or you can go
to the Ask a Ninja page on ourCrawl Space Ninja site and
submit your inspection sheet andpictures there as well.
Make sure you include your nameand telephone number and where
you're located.
If you could list your city andstate, that would help us,
because you might have differentcodes that we need to talk
about.

(08:57):
If you're up in a cold area ordown in a warm area, we may have
different information on how toaddress certain things.
So make sure you send us theinspection sheet along with
photos.
One thing you want to make sureyou keep in mind is that if you
email it to us, you might haveto put it on a shared drive so
that we can access it, because Iknow email is limited to a

(09:17):
certain amount of space, sodon't try to email us 50 photos.
If you've got the ability toput it on a shared drive and
give us access to that in theemail, that would be fantastic.
Let's recap how this processworks.
Once we get the inspectionsheet and your photos, we're
going to help you put together ascope of work for your crawl
space, so that way, your crawlspace looks like this whenever

(09:39):
you're all done with doing yourown crawl space.
We're also going to be comingout with some future videos to
help you tackle the crawl spaceyourself.
If you decide to do thisproject yourself and we may
actually have to recommend thatyou get a local contractor to
come out and take a look If it'ssomething that's real sketchy,
like some foundation problems,you might want to have a local
contractor, or perhaps astructural engineer or someone

(10:02):
to assist you and guide you inthis, and we will certainly do
our best to catch those thingsif possible.
That's why you need tocommunicate with that DIY
specialist and eventually set upa video interview with them to
go over the recommended scope ofwork Also.
I hope this information was veryhelpful for you.
I hope you'll like and commentdown below what we can do to

(10:24):
help you in the future.
And, of course, if you want todo a one-on-one consultation
with me, we've got the buy me acoffee option to where you and I
can do a 30 minute consultationtogether in order to come up
with the best way to tackle yourcrawl spaces.
That has become very popularand I so much enjoy speaking
with you directly, so I'm goingto put a link to that buy me a

(10:46):
coffee down below and I lookforward to helping you out.
Please be on the lookout forfuture videos involving this
crawl space challenge that weare doing.
Thanks, and I hope you make ita happy and blessed day and
we'll see you later.