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I've gotten into a habit of watching homebuilders on YouTube/reading about construction methods (especially with ICF forms), and it's been quite fun. Lots of advancements happening these days.

As for foundation issues, I live in a Gulf Coast state 2 miles from the Gulf as the crow flies, and my crawlspace is so humid that I had to get it encapsulated. I have 2 dehumidifiers, and now that summer is here 1 of them runs 24/7. On the flip side, the deterioration has stopped, but now the joists and subloor are drying and warping (I was warned this would happen, though).




This probably edges into the industrial-control level of automation, but have you thought about hooking up your dehumidifiers to humidity sensors to maintain humidity at a specific level rather than an all-or-nothing approach?

It's my understanding that wood rot occurs mainly due to frequent changes in moisture, the expansion and contraction causing breakdown of the wood fibers, while warping occurs when wood transitions between 'wet' and 'dry' too slowly/quickly/unevenly.

Allowing the moisture to increase back to previous levels *may* reverse some or most of the warping that has occurred, followed with a gradual decrease in humidity with an adjustment period between changes using the aforementioned control system may allow you to find a happy medium and ease the wood into a more stable moisture content without having to deal with squeaky subfloors and uneven joists.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯


>have you thought about hooking up your dehumidifiers to humidity sensors to maintain humidity at a specific level rather than an all-or-nothing approach?

They have a knob on them that sets it to a specific humidity level, which I believe is 55 or 60 percent.

>Allowing the moisture to increase back to previous levels may reverse some or most of the warping that has occurred

Warping has already occurred on the joists due to the ridiculous levels of humidity in the crawl space, this is just more warping occurring. I'm talking like 90% or more humidity down there, and the moisture content of the joists were at 21% and mold was growing all over. At this point, I'm willing to take warping over the other path, which is having my joists rot out. Encapsulation is part 1, and part 2 will happen next year in the winter where I'll get beams and jacks installed.




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