This past weekend I recently had to fix the flooring of my family cottage. In a heavy-traffic side entryway, the plyboard floor was bending when you walked over it.
We opened up the floor to see what the issue was. The ends of the crossbeams in that section were rotted right through (6 in total). We had to cut them back to a another beam where they were not rotten and replace them.
While we were replacing them I had a look in the crawlspace and noticed significant moisture specifically under the washroom section (e.g. crossbeams sweating and dripping). Not sure why it's just that specific section, but the entryway to the washroom suffers the same issue when you walk over the flooring (bending) so we will most likely have to replace that part as well.
I'm wondering what can be done to fix the humidity issue. The cottage has small crawlspace vents all around. My father used to open them up every year and close them in the winter until a contractor told him not to a couple years back.
I have read a lot of articles and also some questions on this site about closing off the crawlspace vents and putting up vapor barrier on the dirt floor even on the walls up to the floor boards. Some people say that this is the best solution, others say that it is location and climate specific and may also be a bit overkill.
I was wondering if there were some knowledgeable people out there that can shine some light on a possible solution.
To give some context the cottage is located on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada. Cold winters, hot summers, lots of insects/pests. The concrete foundation goes a couple feet above and below ground level with a dirt floor crawlspace. Cottage is probably over 40 years old with the crawlspace vents being open in Spring/Summer.
#Insulation #Vent #Crawlspace #Vapor-barrier