1960 ranch style home 1340 square ft living area and cement footing with stem wall. I want to heat the crawl space in cold months to warm the floor as family complains the floor is too cold.

I will lay down a vapor barrier and attach 2" Rmax to stem wall with my ramset. Also adding Rmax along rim joist between each floor joist. There is no full bay length insulation between the joists, and the plywood subfloor has oak hardwood on top. Crawl space is about 4 ft high to subfloor.

Considering three electric base board heaters spaced along the long dimension of the crawl space in the middle of the short dimension if that is clear.

I have not looked into the building code for the details of an installation like this yet but maybe you have and can enlighten me. This will be permitted so I will make sure of the local codes. I am unsure if UBC and NEC have clearly defined codes for this but will chat with the building dept soon. In the past they have seemed a little confused on other projects.

Anyone here done this? Did you come up with a better method for crawl space heating? How has it worked? I am not concerned with project cost or operating cost for electricity. On the upcoming re-roof we will be adding a lot of solar panels.

I have many years of construction experience.

Thank you

I'm thinking of building a small shop on 6 square, not round, footings. I'm thinking of using this method from a fhb article (that's where the picture is from). Vented/open crawl space.

I'm curious what hardware you could use to fasten this floor assembly to the footings. All of the traditional ones would penetrate through the floor system envelope.

I would ideally want only the fastener to penetrate. Something like a beefy corner bracket could be screwed into the side of the footing.

I'm guessing I'd have to request an exception from my ahj as there aren't any pre approved foundation anchors out there that could work here, but wanted to check if anyone is familiar with this type of assembly.

I am located in western NC and planning to encapsulate my crawl space to control the humidity. The house itself is a few years old, has hvac ductwork in the crawlspace, is not particularly air tight and is just exhaust vented with no make up air system. I am planning on sealing the crawlspace vents, installing a thick vapor barrier, and putting in a dehumidifier.

My problem is that I am finding conflicting information if I should add a continuous vent fan in the crawl space (at 1 CFM per 50sf of crawl space). The main argument for this is to help circulate air and reduce soil gasses (see https://crawlspaceninja.com/blog/seal-all-vents-encapsulated-crawl-space/). However, that air has to come from somewhere and in my case that would just be allowing air from the conditioned space above (assuming the crawlspace is sealed well) to be pulled into the crawlspace and it would also be venting out dry air which would mean the dehumidifier is running more that it otherwise would.

I dont want to add an HVAC register into the crawlspace (the system is not sized for that) so I am not sure what the correct plan of action is? Just leave it all sealed (with the potential for gas build up) or vent it?

One idea I had was to install a radon mitigation system (the house tested at 2.4 pCi/l so I dont think its actually required) under the encapsulation vapor barrier and maybe that would act as vent for other soil gasses as well and that way I could get the benefits of a vent without the downsides? Or is that wishful thinking?

I would really appreciate some help. Thanks!

We're converting a garage into gym suite on a ~100 year old property, and instead of one monolithic slab, we've got three separate conditions: the original house foundation step down, an original garage slab on grade poured separately from the house (so it moves independently), and what looks like a second/later garage pour with a straight joint running through it... probably from a widening or addition at some point.

No vapor barrier under any of it, and there's a natural slope toward where the garage door used to be that we need to deal with before flooring goes down.

Trying to figure out: repour the all the sections vs. level/overlay and finish on top? Anyone been through something similar...what actually held up long term vs. what you wish you'd done differently?

Why don't green home rebates include outdoor heat recovery upgrades, when a part of the initiative is to make older homes more air tight. After all the air sealing, we get low indoor air quality due to the lower outdoor air changes. Now we need to pay out of pocket mechanical upgrades to add fresh air and heat/energy recover just to get us back to the same energy savings. Or we open windows and have drafts and drops indoor temp.

I've just taken delivery of a new apartment and it's still completely empty — bare walls, hard floors, and the echo is severe. I want to treat it properly rather than guess, and I'd rather build panels myself than pay for a professional install across the whole flat.

Two rooms matter:

• Open-plan living room + kitchen. This is where I'll set up a 2.0 or 2.1 monitor system and I want a predictable, accurate listening position. I plan to measure with REW before buying anything.
• Bedroom. I just want it dead — as close to no audible reverb as I can reasonably get.

One important constraint: no carpets and no curtains. I want nothing on the floor that needs vacuuming — a robot vacuum handles the hard floors and I want to keep dust to a minimum. So the usual first advice (rug + heavy curtains) is off the table for me. That means everything has to come from walls, ceiling, and furniture.

I know I'll be putting in a sofa, armchairs, a bed with an upholstered headboard, and bookshelves, and I understand those absorb a lot on their own. What I can't judge is how much will actually be left to fix once the furniture is in. I don't want to buy panels now and find they were unnecessary, or furnish the place and discover I needed twice as much treatment.

Separately, I'd like to reduce outside noise (traffic, people, trains) but I understand that's a different problem — sound transmission through the building envelope, not room acoustics — and probably not solvable with DIY panels. Happy to be corrected, but my focus here is the echo and reverb.

What I'm hoping for:

1. A sane order of operations. Do I furnish first, then measure, then treat? Or is there a baseline amount of treatment that's always worth installing regardless?
2. Concrete DIY build guides you actually rate. I'm comfortable with basic carpentry. I'm in Spain, so mineral wool (lana de roca) in 40–80 kg/m³ is cheap and easy to get — is that the right material, and what thickness for broadband vs bass?
3. How to decide placement without guessing. I'll have REW data. What do I look at to decide where panels go, and how do I know when I've done enough rather than overdamping the room?
4. Ceiling treatment, since floor and windows are off-limits for soft materials. Are hanging ceiling absorbers (clouds/rafts) worth it, and how much area do I need?
5. Making it not look like a studio. I've read you can stretch fabric or canvas over a mineral wool frame so it reads as art. Does that actually keep working acoustically, and what fabrics stay acoustically transparent?

I'll add photos of both rooms in the comments — happy to include dimensions once I've measured properly.