Hey everyone,
I have an older home, built in the mid-60s on a crawl space, which I really don't care to work in. The crawl space really needs some cleaning done and a trench w/ drainage tile installed. As soon as the weather breaks, I plan on trying to get this done. I already took out about half the insulation that was put in wrong and falling down. Additionally, I just got done completely gutting one of our bathrooms and the sub-floor is likely rotted. My bathroom contractor will take care of that floor like he did the other one (saw it out and put in new), however I'm sure there is some water damage to the joist and maybe even the surrounding floor.
I'm looking for some suggestions on some good, reasonably price companies that do crawl space cleaning and repair. I might go ahead and just hire someone to do it. To make matters worse, we are now getting carpenter ants in our kitchen. We've had the smaller ants every so often, and I usually bait them, but this year I sprayed and they died and never came back. Maybe that was a mistake as they were keeping the larger ants away? Either way, I need to call my exterminator because the crawl space needs treated for sure. One thing I noticed is that there is an area between two joist that not only did they put in insulation, they also put clear plastic over it. I hope my exterminator will remove it before spraying, but I don't know. My fear is that the ants will use that small section (There are water pipes that run through this area, but I still have no idea why they would insulate and seal with plastic barrier) as a protective area. If the exterminator can't/won't remove this stuff, any suggestions on companies or a person that might? I read today that using plastic to seal insulation is a bad idea, so of course now the fear is the ants are living in the joists, at least in one section or another.
I have an older home, built in the mid-60s on a crawl space, which I really don't care to work in. The crawl space really needs some cleaning done and a trench w/ drainage tile installed. As soon as the weather breaks, I plan on trying to get this done. I already took out about half the insulation that was put in wrong and falling down. Additionally, I just got done completely gutting one of our bathrooms and the sub-floor is likely rotted. My bathroom contractor will take care of that floor like he did the other one (saw it out and put in new), however I'm sure there is some water damage to the joist and maybe even the surrounding floor.
I'm looking for some suggestions on some good, reasonably price companies that do crawl space cleaning and repair. I might go ahead and just hire someone to do it. To make matters worse, we are now getting carpenter ants in our kitchen. We've had the smaller ants every so often, and I usually bait them, but this year I sprayed and they died and never came back. Maybe that was a mistake as they were keeping the larger ants away? Either way, I need to call my exterminator because the crawl space needs treated for sure. One thing I noticed is that there is an area between two joist that not only did they put in insulation, they also put clear plastic over it. I hope my exterminator will remove it before spraying, but I don't know. My fear is that the ants will use that small section (There are water pipes that run through this area, but I still have no idea why they would insulate and seal with plastic barrier) as a protective area. If the exterminator can't/won't remove this stuff, any suggestions on companies or a person that might? I read today that using plastic to seal insulation is a bad idea, so of course now the fear is the ants are living in the joists, at least in one section or another.