Foundation Vents

Foundation vents are vents placed in your home’s crawl space foundation to allow air to flow in and out of your foundation. The idea is for the vents to create cross ventilation to prevent condensation from forming under your home. There are three basic types of foundation vents and they vary in price and features.

The first type of foundation vent is a manual vent. This vent has to be manually opened and closed. There is some debate among professionals as to whether vents even need to be closed in the winter months. The argument is that wet winter weather will lead to condensation and moisture forming under your home.

The flipside of the argument is that if too much cold air gets inside the crawlspace that it can contribute to frozen water and sewer pipes. The advantage of manual foundation vents are they are the most economical of the three types and are fairly simple to install.

Automatic foundation vents will open and close themselves. They are controlled by a temperature sensitive coil. The automatic foundation vent does not require a power source. They are a good choice if you have trouble remembering to open or close your vents or if your vents are hard to get to. Advantages include not having to manually close your vents, as simple to install as manual vents, moderately priced and no power source required.

The third type is the powered foundation vent. This type of vent is especially helpful for crawl spaces that are hard to vent and/or need more air flowing through. This foundation vent can also either come with or have a thermostat and/or a humidistat installed on it to control the operation of the motor and opening/closing of the vent. Special ductwork is offered by some companies to provide ventilation to hard to reach areas under your home.

Powered foundation vents are used in conjunction with automatic vents so that the automatic vent can act as an intake for the ventilation. Obviously this type of vent will be more expensive than the other two, but there are certain advantages and you have to decide if it’s worth it to you for the extra features you get for your money.