Grade Lot or Encapsulate Crawlspace

[Jordan L.]

I own a rental home in the humid southeast that has some water issues in the crawlspace. Sometimes there’s standing water, and other times there’s just high moisture. There’s some growth just beginning to show on some of the joists, so I need to do something about this.

I purchased the home near the end of last year and had an inspection done. The inspector noticed a negative grade sloping towards the home. I was going to grade the lot, but I had a crawlspace company come out and tell me I would have better results than grading if I were to encapsulate the crawlspace to the tune of $6500-$7500. I have since gotten other quotes, same ballpark figures for the encapsulation.

What would you do? Grade the lot and see if that alone solves the moisture problem? Encapsulate? Or... both?