The Crawl Space

Since my home is in the Bolin Creek floodway fringe the building was built with an 8" high crawlspace in case of the 100-year flood. It gives new meaning to Lord-willing and the creek-don't-rise. Nevertheless, the state of my crawlspace was pretty abysmal when I moved in, and despite my requests to the sellers to remove their debris, it remained a termite buffet under my house. Moreover, the insulation under the floors had been installed incorrectly, and was therefore falling to the ground.

On my parent's last day, Dad took it upon himself to clear out the debris and secure the insulation using a nifty invention of galvanized wire, cut with a 45° angle tip to dig into wood floor joists. He also attached the dryer exhaust to the outside vent, so moisture was no longer vents directly into the crawlspace. 

In the end, we removed at least 6-7 trash bags of cardboard and other waste, two bags of plastic milk jugs, a few bags of rocks and pebbles, a spray bottle, and several gallons of muriatic acid (for cleaning bricks.) Although I don't reckon I'll spend a lot of time in my crawlspace, it's comforting to know there's nothing living, dying, rotting, leaking or decaying down there.

Future under-the-house-projects will include: replacing my water heater with something more energy efficient, insulating the plumbing, closing off the deck to make secure storage for bikes, tools, gardening supplies, or ... chickens?