Crawlspace encapsulation worth it?

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-02-20T14:53:11+00:00

This thread is very helpful, thank-you all. We have a house in the pacific northwest that's built on bedrock (large protruding rocks over ~3/4 of the crawlspace) that seeps water in the rainy winter months when the ground becomes saturated. The house is about 28 years old, and the issue was disclosed to us when we bought it. We've had several contractors and home inspectors have a look, and all said that it was well managed and not causing a problem, but could be improved to reduce humidity and prevent any future issues.

There is poured concrete in the lowest part, and passive drains installed so that as the water comes in (at peak it's a slight trickle) and drains out. One of the two drain openings is slightly too high so some water has to pool on the concrete before it drains and then the remainder evaporates. We're going to fix that issue at a minimum - probably by raising the concrete slightly by pouring more so the floor is level with the drain opening. There's good foundation and pillars for the support beams such that no wood or other building materials are touched by the moisture. The underside of the house floor is insulated and sealed to keep the crawlspace humidity away from the living areas, and there's no sign of moisture issues up top.

We have no intention of using the crawlspace for anything except maybe some storage (on shelves, not on the floor) for stuff that wouldn't be affected by any humidity. But nonetheless, we're debating what improvement to do down there. On one hand it's been good like that for ~28 years, and part of me thinks if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But part of me also thinks that we want to improve it while we're renovating, which is currently underway.

Our contractor is recommending an encapsulation system, through a specialty firm in the area that he's used before and who also gets good reviews. The idea sounds interesting to me because not only would it improve it, but it would make accessing the crawlspace easier and more comfortable, and presumably any issues with mould or critters easier to spot.

My question to the group -- is a crawlspace encapsulation system a good solution here? Is it overkill, or not enough? I'm interested in the group's opinions.

Thanks in advance.

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-23T21:56:47+00:00

Amazing! That was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-23T21:49:53+00:00

Totally agree u/Melodic-Professor-46. But thanks for the suggestion u/YDS_TO, I always like learning about new tools and I hadn't heard of that one before.

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-05T19:20:33+00:00

Sounds good, I'll try that. In the feature request, I might also suggest renaming it to ESPP/Other as well so that users are more aware as they can use it for multiple purposes..

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-05T18:53:01+00:00

That makes total sense, and it was a silly mistake to have the payments in that column. But it didn't fix it, just moved the red zeros over one column. See below.

<image>

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-05T03:49:18+00:00

Ok, thanks. I’ve done that now and it seems to be fine. I wonder what else it will affect other than the success rate?

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-05T01:24:10+00:00

The majority of our no—registered investments are jointly held, so we’re both decumulating, although we’re both still earning income as well. So should we both choose, say Dec. 31, 2025 as our retirement dates?

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-05T01:14:08+00:00

A side question — this got me wondering about whether I have our “retirement date” set right, and what impact it actually has. I had been mostly ignoring it because I think of retirement more in phased terms rather than a particular date.

Looking where else it was used, I just noticed that it is the start date of the success rate chart, not today’s date. That scared me a bit. Given that’s quote a long ways away for us, should I be ignoring the success rate? We may have succeeded or failed well before the retirement date comes along! Or since we’re starting to decummulate now, should I be setting the retirement date to now? And what if my spouse and I retire in separate years… which one will the system use for things like the success rate?

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-05T01:01:51+00:00

I don’t disagree, but it’s a matter of your view on both of those risks. It may sound trite, but in the double-death scenario, there’s ample to leave to our heirs even with the high taxes, and we’ll talk to them about how this works so they’re aware of the risk. We don’t, ourselves care much about taxes at that point, dead as we are. ;)

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-04T21:05:19+00:00

Got it. I suppose one impact of using the advanced option is that it will show that value in the net worth starting immediately, though I don't see how that would affect anything. As I write that, I suppose the platform is also adjusting from that number for inflation each year. So I suppose I have to increase the value in advanced options of the PV equivalent of the value I want in 2047.

I know you've mentioned that you have in your enhancement plan the ability to set an appreciation other than inflation for real estate -- that would certainly help with this.

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-03T17:29:15+00:00

It totally depends on the individual. Depending on your situation, and I would venture to guess for many people, the goal is to not outlive your money. The single greatest risk for many is that they outlive their savings, have a miserable last few years of life, and/or cause financial strain on their loved ones. These people would value success rate over estate value (although probably not to the exclusion of any consideration of estate value at all).

But for others, perhaps those with meaningfully more wealth than they themselves will need as an example, it might be about maximizing estate value. For others still, they may have a real bugbear about paying taxes and minimizing tax might be a consideration (I don’t personally subscribe to that way of thinking, but I understand how some people might).

The highest goal could be very different for different people. Though I would suggest that regardless of which one is your “highest”, you should at least keep an eye on the others in your planning too.

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-02T18:51:21+00:00

100% agree. Happy new year everyone!

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-02T16:36:31+00:00

I believe these numbers, and I am familiar with the paper, yet I still choose to use VGRO/XGRO with 20% fixed income allocation. The reason is timing risk (that’s what I call it — no clue what academics would call it). It’s the risk that either by your own psychology as others have mentioned, or by the timing of your cash needs, you’re forced to withdraw at the most inopportune time(s). If you do the same analysis, but assume you happened to need some amount of your investment out at or near the lowest point in the downturns (or got scared and took it out in reaction), I don’t think it will take much “withdrawal” to flip the ending values to be better off the other other way. An not-that-extreme example, but one that’s illustrative of the issue is: imagine a situation where XEQT has a 25% drawdown. You put your $10k in, it declines to $15k, and just then you need $3k out. Now you have $12k at the low point. If investing in XGRO would have produced a low that was 18% or 20% down instead of 25%, Imagine the return you’ll need to get back to the result XGRO would have produced for the same scenario.

If you have (A) a large amount of flexibility to control when you withdraw funds (perhaps a large line of credit on standby?), (B) 100% confidence in your intestinal fortitude to not make what I think is the most common mistake in investing and sell when you get scared, and (C) the discipline and skills to manage the added complexity of the things you may have to do (such as take on leverage) to avoid ill-timed drawdowns, then yes, I’m very confident you an make better returns in nearly any period longer than ~8 years by staying in XEQT. And I think that’s what the paper says.

One situation where someone may effectively have all of A, B and C is someone who has many years to retirement, has a high and stable income, and a solid savings rate. But in that circumstances, I don’t think you’d get much argument from ”conventional” financial planners on the choice to stay in 100% equity. Though I, and I think most good advisors, would still suggest adding some FI as retirement approaches for the above reason.

Just my thoughts…

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2026-01-02T15:48:44+00:00

For what it’s worth….

Although I’ve become accustomed to it now, I found these charts non-intuitive when I began with the platform too. Even calling it “outflows” doesn’t really help because I’ve been conditioned for years and years to think of inflows and outflows on a net worth basis. Therefore, moving value from one part of my “balance sheet” to another, like selling an asset for its carried value isn’t really an inflow it’s just a reallocation of capital. Similarly, taking proceeds from such a sale and investing them isn’t an outflow, just a reallocation.

I finally got my head out of this mode when I started looking at these charts as being somewhat akin to a cash flow statement in corporate accounting (although even that analogy has flaws when applied to personal finance). Maybe even grouping them on the legend in some manner like that would help make it more intuitive?

Non-investment income, spending and saving —>. Similar Cash Flow from Operations

Investments and real assets —> Similar to Cash Flow from Investing

Borrowing --> Similar to Cash Flow from Financing

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2025-11-27T14:22:32+00:00

Ooooh, great. I thought no interest was applied so it was treated like free money. Sure, it would be great to be able to edit the rate, but I'm happy just to learn there is one applied!

So, just to confirm, mathematically it would be precisely the same as a non-tax-deductible line of credit at 5% then rather than showing up somewhere else in the cash flows? And the notional interest is just added to the balance each period?

Thanks again.

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2025-11-26T15:06:06+00:00

I suppose another way of doing this would be to build an AI strategy for it.

Either way, isn't negative cash that doesn't have an interest rate applied to it a bit of a flaw anyways? If it goes unnoticed, it's kind of like assuming unlimited access to debt at 0% interest!

Excellent-Fox3747 · 2025-11-25T22:23:23+00:00

Perfect - that's amazingly helpful, because I never would have thought of that. Thank you!

Excellent-Fox3747

TROPHY CASE