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Water, in any form, can be extremely destructive to a house. While most buildings are designed to cope with water from the outside, many are not well-equipped to deal with trapped inside moisture in the form of vapor-laden air. Houses actually need to "breathe," and many older homes do, but modern, tightly insulated homes cannot. Your home will be better off if it can breathe out some cool, conditioned air in summer and warm, heated air in winter. Though this "exhale" may increase your heating and A/C bills a bit, it will remove some of the 7 to 10 gallons of potentially harmful moisture generated daily.
This moisture comes from many sources: cooking, washing clothes, watering plants, taking showers, and humidifying the air during winter. Unless indoor air and the moisture it contains has some way out of the house, you're in for lingering odors, stale air in general, mold growing on wall paint, and enough moisture condensing on cold windows to create puddles that peel paint and rot window sills.
This project demonstrates how to install vents in the foundation. If a crawl space has a concrete floor and insulated walls, you can add a series of small foundation vents for aeration. A general rule for the required number of vents is to install 1 square foot of vent for every 150 square feet of floor space (sliding metal vents usually take the place of one 8 x 8 x 16-inch concrete block). However, you may need more vents for a dirt-floor crawl space in a shaded site or damp climate, and fewer for a concrete-floor crawl space in a dry, windy climate.
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