Wednesday November, 28 2012

Nature: Conditioned Crawl Spaces in Residential Structure – Training Awareness

On Wednesday evening, November 28th, the members of the Indian River Volunteer Fire Company participated in a training seminar associated the “Characteristics of Conditioned Crawl Spaces in Residential Structures.”

The training session was a joint venture with representatives from DryZone and Indian River’s Safety Officer – Steven R. Hawkins. The training curriculum included a PowerPoint instructional presentation regarding residential crawl spaces; whether they are conditioned or unconditioned, vented or unvented, etc.

A "crawl space" is defined as the open space under a structure that allows the installation of required pipes, ducts, wires and structural devices. The space can vary from 24" to several feet. Generally there is no floor in the crawl space other than soil. Frequently, am installed 2" thick unfinished concrete slurry is used to seal this space. Generally again, there are means of access and ventilation to the space. The ventilation means usually are screened grills similar to eave venting and the access door must be of a suitable size to allow a person to crawl into the open space.

A “confined space” is defined, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), as a space that is large enough and so configured that a person can bodily enter and perform assigned work; and has limited or restricted means for entry or exit; and is not designed for continuous occupancy by people.

The instructional curriculum agenda topics included:

• confined spaced definition;

• conditional crawl space;

• equipment found in crawl spaces;

• access methods to crawl spaces;

• ventilation methods to crawl spaces; and

• fire suppression methods to crawl spaces.

These training discussions were linked with actual residential incidents within Indian River’s fire district where mitigation of incidents involved interaction with similar types of crawl space issues.

Various presenters from DryZone included: Bill Anderson, Jason Harman, and Gary Lawson who provided a PowerPoint presentation tailored towards Indian River; instructional reference material , such as Crawl Space Science, What to Have Done… and Why, by Lawrence Janesky (http://www.amazon.com/Crawl-Space-Science-What-Done/dp/097764572X)  ; clean space crawl space encapsulation systems, http://www.basementsystems.com/crawl-space/crawl-space-products/cleanspace.html; clean space crawl space access system, http://www.turtl.com; and various other hand-outs.

A conditioned crawl space performs better than vented crawl spaces in terms of safety, health, comfort, durability and energy consumption. Conditioned crawl spaces also do not cost more to construct than vented crawl spaces.

Illustrated herewith are various photographs and links to reference information.

http://www.irvfc.com/gallery.cfm?id=979

http://www.irvfc.com/gallery.cfm?id=1100

http://www.irvfc.com/gallery.cfm?id=1101