How Open Crawl Space Vents Cost My Family Three Days Without Water
Introduction
The freeze that shut off our water for three days
THE FREEZE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED
I'm about to tell you a story that still makes me feel terrible years later.
My wife and kids went three days without running water in the middle of a freeze.
Three days of cracking ice on the pool just to get water to flush the toilets.
No showers. No doing dishes. Just survival mode.
And here's the worst part - I'm a contractor.
I know about crawl spaces. I know about frozen pipes. I know what cold weather does to houses that aren't protected.
But I wasn't home when it happened. I was out of town, and there wasn't much anyone could do until I got back.
This happened a few years ago, but I'm telling you about it now because we're hitting freezing temperatures again.
Right now, in December, people around Chattanooga are dealing with the same risks my family dealt with.
And if I can help you avoid what we went through, then at least something good comes from my mistake.
What Happened That Week
We'd just moved into this house in North Georgia. It was a nice place, newer construction, but the crawl space wasn't encapsulated. I knew I needed to take care of that eventually, but we'd just moved in. It was on the list.
Then the temperature dropped hard. One of those cold snaps where it just stays freezing for days. And suddenly, our water stopped working.
My wife called me. I was out of town for work. She said the water wasn't running, and neither were the neighbors'. Turns out everyone around us who didn't have an encapsulated crawl space was dealing with frozen pipes.
For three days, my family had no running water. My wife and the kids had to go outside, crack through the ice on our pool, and haul water inside in buckets just so they could flush the toilets. That's not something any family should have to do.
And the whole time, I'm stuck out of town knowing exactly what the problem is but not able to fix it.
The Real Problem: Bad Design Meets Open Vents
So when I finally got home and went under the house to see what happened, I figured it out pretty quick.
The builder had run the main water line in at the front corner of the house. Nothing wrong with that by itself. But he ran it with PEX piping straight up through the crawl space right at that corner. And on either side of that corner, he'd put vents.
So picture this: the main water line coming into your house is sitting directly between two open vents. When the wind blows from one direction, freezing air comes through one vent and hits that pipe. When it blows the other way, same thing from the other vent.
No matter which way the wind was blowing during that freeze, there was ice-cold air flowing directly across our main water line. It couldn't have been worse placement if someone tried.
And those vents? Wide open. Because that's another thing people forget - you need to close your crawl space vents in the winter. Leaving them open is just asking for cold air to get under your house and freeze everything down there.
Bad design from the builder plus open vents in freezing weather equals no water for three days.
What My Family Had to Do Without Me There
Let me tell you what three days without water actually looks like.
My wife had to take the kids outside in freezing weather to the pool. They'd crack through the ice on top, fill up buckets with pool water, and haul it back inside. That water went into the toilets so they could flush them. That's it. That's all they could do.
No showers for anyone. No running the dishwasher. No washing hands properly. You don't realize how much you use water until it's just gone.
And this wasn't some old house in the middle of nowhere. This was a newer house in a regular neighborhood. My wife and kids shouldn't have been living like that.
The worst part for me was knowing what was wrong and not being able to fix it. I'm sitting out of town while my family is dealing with frozen pipes, and there's nothing I can do until I get back home.
That's a helpless feeling. And it's one I don't want any other family to go through.
How I Fixed It When I Got Home
The second I got home, I went straight to work fixing it.
First thing I did was seal off those vents. Both of them. Stuffed insulation in there to block any cold air from getting through. Should have been done before winter even started, but at least it was getting done now.
Then I grabbed a drop cord and a space heater and got them down into the crawl space. Positioned that heater so it was warming up the area around that frozen water line.
Within a few hours, I could hear the water start moving again. The line thawed out, and we had running water again.
We got lucky. Because that water line was PEX, it flexed when it froze instead of cracking and bursting. If that had been copper or some other material, we would have been dealing with burst pipes and water damage on top of everything else.
But even though we got lucky and nothing burst, the damage was done. My family went three days without water because I didn't take care of something I knew needed to be done.
Why Even Contractors Make This Mistake
You'd think someone like me would have this stuff figured out. I work on crawl spaces for a living. I know what happens when they're not protected.
But here's the reality - we get busy. We move into a new place and there's a hundred things on the list. The crawl space needs work, but it's not urgent until suddenly it is.
And you can't predict when you're going to be out of town during a freeze. You can't plan around cold snaps hitting at the worst possible time.
That's the thing about crawl space problems. They don't wait for a convenient time. They happen when they happen, and if you're not prepared, you're dealing with frozen pipes and no water.
Even knowing what I know, even doing this work every day, I still let it slide. And my family paid the price for that.
What This Taught Me About Encapsulation
After that experience, I learned something important. Closing your vents in winter helps, but it's not enough by itself.
You need full encapsulation. Sealed vents, proper insulation, vapor barriers, temperature control - the whole system working together.
When your crawl space is fully encapsulated, you don't have to worry about cold air getting under your house. You don't have to remember to close vents every winter. You don't have to hope your pipes can handle the next freeze.
It's all taken care of. The temperature under your house stays stable. Your pipes stay protected. Your family has water even when it's freezing outside.
That peace of mind is worth everything. Knowing that what happened to my family won't happen again because the crawl space is actually protected the right way.
If I'd had that encapsulation done before that freeze hit, my wife and kids would never have gone three days without water.
The Next Step
If you haven't checked your crawl space vents lately, go look at them today.
Are they open? Close them. Freezing temperatures are here, and open vents are letting cold air straight onto your pipes.
Do you know where your main water line runs under your house? If it's near vents or in an exposed area, you need to pay attention to that. Bad placement plus cold weather equals frozen pipes.
Don't wait until you're dealing with a problem. Don't wait until your family is without water. Get ahead of it now while you still can.
If you've got insulation down there but no encapsulation, that's not enough. Insulation helps, but it won't stop freezing air from coming through open vents.
Pay attention to the temperatures under your house. Check your crawl space before the next freeze hits. Make sure you're not set up for the same disaster my family went through.
