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I bought a house a month ago and I'm having issues with a crawl space door located right next to the upstairs air return. The door is not insulated on the other side and smells/heat from the attic seep in all day and night causing a musty smell being circulated upstairs. The thermostat is also just off camera so unless I turn it up to 80, it will run all day because that corner STAYS hot.

I'm handy but not in any way shape or form educated in the ways of proper construction so don't flame me here. I considered hanging some sort of insulation blanket or roll out insulation just inside of the door. I could just roll it up or treat it like a curtain when I need to access the attic from here. Perhaps even seal the door with silicone and peel it off whenever I need to access it.

Any advice?

Crawlspace Door

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Go to Home Depot or equivalent. Get some "rubber [or vinyl] foam self-stick weatherseal." It comes in various widths and thicknesses—you'll have to select what works best in your situation/dimensions. I'm assuming you have door stop in your access door's jamb. Stick the weatherseal against the door stop on all the edges. You may need to install a stiff backing (piece of wood?) across the threshold to apply the weatherseal to. The weatherseal needs to be thicker than the biggest gap between the door and door stop, and wide enough that it seals against as much of the door perimeter as possible. (If you don't have door stop, you should add some.)

You may want to also insulate the door itself, if the "living space" side gets warm. Simplest thing is probably to glue some of the pink foam board on the inside face of the door, as big a piece as will fit and still allow it to open and close.

Finally, ensure that any walls inside the crawl space are insulated—if not currently insulated, you can probably just install fiberglass batting.

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  • This is super helpful thank you! I actually bought 2 small panels of the pink foam board yesterday along with some reflective insulation. I'll run back over and get some weatherseal. There's definitely some weather sealing on the door frame now but its not doing nearly enough. Also the inside is pretty well insulated its really just the door. I considered hanging the reflective insulation on the framing just beyond the door for an extra layer of heat blocking (like a curtain) but we'll see how this goes first. Thanks again!
    – callmewb
    Commented Jul 16, 2023 at 15:31
  • TBH, if you have poor weatherseal around the door edges, that's probably 75% of your problem. Heat conduction is probably the other 25%.
    – Huesmann
    Commented Jul 17, 2023 at 11:41
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    Pink foam board and a "curtain" of reflective insulation did the trick. AC isn't running all day and the smell has subsided. Thank you for the help!
    – callmewb
    Commented Jul 17, 2023 at 23:59
  • How'd you attach the curtain?
    – Huesmann
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 12:06

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