We were talking about crawl spaces and how they can hold surprises, what they are not supposed to hold is water. Water or excessive moisture in a crawl space can cause the wood floor structure to rot and fail. If an Inspector finds water or moisture, they will try to figure out what is causing the problem.
It was my first inspection of the day and it was out a winding road in the country. When I arrived at the house, I found it to be an eighteen-year-old ranch house, you guessed it, it was on a crawlspace. As I started to enter the crawl space, I noticed that there was no vapor barrier in the crawlspace just dirt floor. Well okay it was more like mud on the floor. The further I went the deeper the mud became. I had been feeling a tingly sensation from the mud. To make a long story short, I discovered a sixty-five gallon electric water heater buried in the center of the crawlspace, with only eight inches of the top showing.
It was installed when the house was built, and to my wonderment it was still heating water. Now keep in mind it was still heating water, but it was rusted out under ground and had made the crawl a very large pool of mud. The tingling I had been feeling, was from the bare electric wire on the water heater under ground.
After the water heater was replaced and installed above ground, the crawl quickly dried out with no damage to the house.
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