Great comments everyone...price ...can be between $2- $3/sf. Anything more is overkill. As to the smell of some companies poly ... there was a run 4+ years ago where a handful of manufacturers that made a poly that was white on one side and black on the other and was reinforced. 1 of 10 after several months to a year started smelling like cat pee and got stronger. I ripped out a handful of these crawl poly's. I wouldn't blame the sealed company's only because we all look for a deal on plastic to pass on to you ... and the odor doesn't start for awhile...that could be 400 crawls in 6 months for a handful of us. That's 40 of them stinking and 30 notice enough. About the DIY'ers ... I have DIY hardwood floors ... brakes... toilets...etc ... It takes me 6 months to get a diligent guy up and going on crawls where I can let him run and inspect his work after. I couldn't imagine the $ lessons learned that a DIY'er gets into. Just know it takes one really experienced crawl space tech and 3 new techs to finish correctly a 2600 sf sealed crawl using 50 labor hours. Know that 50% of your homes air comes from the crawl space so a poorly prepped sealed crawl can trap some pretty nasty mold. Dehu's: to use or not to use??? Tests show that mold has not grown in sealed crawls that use a 4 inch air supply line per 1500sf with average height of 2.5 ft. Though the humidity reduces down in the South (Raleigh Area) to 68%-77% when sealed still leaves high humidity compared to the average homes humidity of 52%. But mold does not grow. Why? I can only guess ... A. Ground, where mold comes from, is sealed off B. Air is slightly circulating from the air supply line on your supply side. And a dehu wholesales $1000 average ... then install and electrical hardwire hookup and gravity fed condensation line. $1600-$1800 should be fair?? And that will take your humidity down to your chosen level ... most, I have found, chose 50%. Now here's the rub ... your dehu is taking up a chunk if not all of your energy efficiency that your conditioned sealed crawl gives to your AC system. So if you don't take the old insulation out and seal in the mold and the defication from the crickets, mice and snakes and you aren't getting any efficiency out of the sealed crawl ... then why invest $ at all??? No savings or better air quality. My recco: pull floor insulation, sanitize entire crawl for SUPERIOR lifetime air quality ... seal crawl and forget the dehu and gain 15.8% energy efficiency on new homes past 2008 ... higher efficiency for older homes. My pet peeve.... if a home has mold on the beams and evidence of cricket poop ... little black pellets all over the joists ... I wont seal it without pulling the insulation and disinfecting the crawl. But 95% of all companies seal the crawl trapping in ALL THAT MESS and that's there standard seal crawl practice. That should be criminal!!! Like all the contractors who knew back in early 1900's that lead based paint was killing children but kept using it because it was cheap ... until 1970's when a law was passed after ??? more than a million baby's past away. I feel mold in the crawl is that same issue that is slow to REAR ITS UGLY HEAD ... buyer beware ... short cuts can hurt you long term. www.SealedSolution.com

Pros and cons. Please comment to add to or correct what I list here. edited: I just saw that the house has a crawlspace. These can vary greatly in usefulness. Pros for basement. Provides Storage area Utility area Maybe provide additional living space. Easy access to plumbing, etc.for repairs or to make changes which are lower cost than a slab. Heating has more options, easier (not sure) Cons for basement More expensive to build/buy Any others??? Pros for slab. Lower cost to build/buy Any others??? Cons for slab. No storage No possible additional living space Heating options limited/higher cost (not sure) Changes or repairs to plumbing are expensive For my DH and me the main concerns would be the easy low cost access to utilities. We've fixed broken pipes and added/moved sinks, etc all without much cost. Also have run electrical and cable lines through the basement. Also the storage. I just estimated that we would need a 500 sf addition to make up for the loss of our basement. It would include a woodshop, storage for seasonal items, camping and hunting equipment, laundry, utilities such as furnace, hot water tanks, etc. The basement is much cheaper than an addtional 500 sf of living space. Write up your own pros and cons. This post was edited by debrak2008 on Sun, Dec 15, 13 at 11:32

I cant really answer your question but i had an estimate to have the cleanspace installed and they wanted nearly $8000 dollars and my house is not even woth 60 thousand so i passed. Why did they paint? And i did not know that the liner had an odor. The man told me that if i had the liner installed that and mold growth in the crawlspace would stop. i have a very small amount of mold down there. Sorry to hear that you are have issues with the smell. Did you ask the installer about it?

That's too high. The smell is likely mildew/mold. You need to keep it under 50%. I'm perplexed why the builder would not understand the basics of crawl space humidity. My basement smelled at 60%. It is now kept at 45-50%. No smell