Crawl space vapor barrier in Alhambra CA - the ground sealed off under your house

Most people call us because the floors feel cold, a closet smells musty, or someone looked through the hatch and saw bare dirt or torn old plastic. The price depends mostly on how much has to happen before the cover goes down, such as clearing out debris, stopping water that comes in from the yard or repairing damaged framing, and on the size of the crawl space and how easy it is to get into. The schedule turns on those same things, plus whether the job needs a permit, and if you're also thinking about crawl space insulation, it's sensible to plan both at once. Your own figure comes from the estimate, once I've been under the house.

I start by going under the house myself, because the first question is always where any water is coming from, and the answer is often outside, in how the yard slopes or where the sprinklers point. Some crawl spaces only need a ground cover, and others need repairs before they can be sealed, so I tell you plainly which kind you have before we discuss anything else. If water is getting in, I would rather you fix that first, or have us plan it into the job, than pay for plastic that ends up sitting in a puddle. Once the space is ready, our crew clears out stored things and old debris, lays the sheeting across the whole floor so no dirt is left showing, overlaps and seals the seams, fits it snug around piers and pipes, and takes the debris away with us.

A ground cover handles moisture from below, and the rest of the house has its own version of that work. Where damp air could reach cold surfaces inside walls or ceilings, vapor barrier installation keeps it from collecting where you can't see it, and attic air sealing closes the gaps up top that draw air up through the house from the crawl space.

The Alhambra Building Division issues permits for most home construction work, and its list names structural repairs and duct work but not crawl space vapor barriers, so the list alone doesn't settle whether your job needs a permit, and the division takes calls from owners who want to ask. We check with the city's building office before work begins, and if your job includes framing repairs, that is work the city's list does name. When a job needs a permit, we pull it and keep you informed through the inspections. On permitted jobs in the city, construction companies also file a report listing every subcontractor so the city can check business licenses, and that check takes about two weeks before the permit is finalized, so we plan the start date around it.

Many of the crawl spaces we open sit under older raised-floor houses, where the hatch is tucked in a closet or behind a shrub and the space has collected years of stored boxes and scrap wood. We're based in Alhambra and work in many cities around it, and we see the same kind of houses on jobs in Monterey Park and San Gabriel, so if your city isn't listed, please ask.