The last piece of a proper encapsulated crawlspace. We size the unit to your cubic footage (not by guess), plumb the condensate line to daylight or a sump, and dial in the humidistat so your crawlspace holds a steady 50-55% RH year-round.
A licensed local crew — usually out in 24 to 72 hours. Written scope, fixed price, no pressure.
Dehumidifier sizing on a SouthPark crawl is where I see the most common install mistakes in this neighborhood, and I see them constantly because SouthPark has a housing stock split that trips up most sizing calculators. The 1960s brick ranches in Beverly Woods, Foxcroft, and Barclay Downs have a low-cube footprint — 2,000 SF of area at 26 inches of clearance is only 4,333 cubic feet. The 1990s teardown-rebuild houses on Colony Rd, Sharon Rd, and the Foxcroft infill have a high-cube footprint — 3,500 SF at 42 inches of clearance is 12,250 cubic feet. Same neighborhood, cubic volume varies by a factor of nearly three, and the dehumidifier that is correct for one is wrong for the other. Last month I got called to a 1997 Colony Rd rebuild where the previous contractor had installed a Santa Fe Compact 70 — which is the correct unit for the 1960s ranch across the street — in a 3,800 SF crawl at 40 inches of clearance. The unit was running 20 hours a day and holding 68 percent RH in August. That is a losing fight. We swapped it for an Aprilaire E100 and the humidity was at 52 percent within 48 hours.
The other SouthPark-specific sizing issue is the partial-basement configuration on the Barclay Downs 1970s two-stories. Those houses have a basement under half the footprint and a crawl under the other half, and the moisture load calculation has to account for the interface between the two spaces. If the basement-to-crawl wall is open, the dehumidifier has to serve the combined volume and needs to be sized bigger. If we seal the interface as part of the encapsulation scope, the dehumidifier can be sized for the crawl alone. That decision is made on the free on-site based on what makes sense for the specific house — how the basement is currently being conditioned, whether the shared HVAC handles the basement adequately, and what the homeowner wants for the finished environment.
The dehumidifier process on a SouthPark job starts with cubic footage measurement, not square footage. I measure the crawl footprint with a laser distance meter, measure the clearance at four points across the footprint (girder, wall base, pier tops, low corners), and calculate the cubic volume with the average clearance. On a 1966 Beverly Woods brick ranch the math typically works out to 4,000 to 5,500 cubic feet. On a 1998 Colony Rd teardown-rebuild it typically works out to 10,000 to 14,000 cubic feet. That cube number, combined with the moisture load class of the crawl (sealed and encapsulated, partially sealed, or fully vented), drives the pints-per-day sizing.
For a properly sealed and encapsulated SouthPark 1960s ranch at 4,500 cubic feet, the design moisture load is approximately 45 pints per day at AHAM conditions. But AHAM ratings are at 80 degrees and 60 percent RH — a Charlotte crawl in April is 60 degrees and 55 percent RH target, and dehumidifier performance drops by 30 to 50 percent at those conditions. So the 45 PPD design load calls for a 70 PPD nameplate-rated unit to achieve the target. Santa Fe Compact 70 or Aprilaire E070 sizes right at that number, and both fit under the tight 24-to-28-inch clearance of a Beverly Woods or Foxcroft ranch — the Compact 70 is 12 inches tall and the E070 is 13-1/4 inches, both hang from the joists on isolation grommets with plenty of vertical margin.
For a 1990s teardown-rebuild at 12,000 cubic feet, the design moisture load is approximately 120 pints per day. That calls for an Aprilaire E100 or a Santa Fe Ultra98 as the primary. On the largest 5,500 SF Foxcroft infill houses with 44-inch crawls where the footprint approaches 15,000 cubic feet, we sometimes add an AlorAir Sentinel HDi90 as a supplementary unit on the far end of the crawl if the perimeter is long enough that a single unit will not effectively dehumidify the corners. Two-unit installs are less common but they show up on the biggest Colony Rd rebuilds.
Installation on either housing stock is the same technique. Dehumidifier hangs from the joists on isolation grommets in the tight 1960s clearance so it stays off the liner and the drain runs by gravity, or sits on a small poured pad in the taller 1990s clearance. Drain line is 5/8-inch flexible tubing routed to daylight where slope allows, or to a condensate pump when it does not. On the 1960s ranches with 26-inch clearance and no exterior grade drop, we usually use a condensate pump — Little Giant VCMA-15ULS — mounted on a shelf near the unit, discharging to daylight or to an existing plumbing stack. On the 1990s rebuilds with 40-plus inches of clearance and typical exterior grade drops, gravity drain to daylight is usually feasible. Power is a dedicated 20-amp circuit pulled through the Mecklenburg electrical permit — never shared with the crawl light because a nuisance trip at 2 a.m. in July is how you wake up to a swamp.
The SouthPark dehumidifier spec depends entirely on which era house we are working under. On the 1960s brick ranches in Beverly Woods, Foxcroft, Barclay Downs, and the original SouthPark grid — 24 to 28 inches of clearance, 4,000 to 5,500 cubic feet typical — we spec the Santa Fe Compact 70 or the Aprilaire E070. Both are compact-form-factor units built specifically for the tight clearance environment. Santa Fe Compact 70: 70 pints per day at AHAM, 12 inches tall, 21 inches wide, MERV 13 filter, integrated humidistat with digital display, 6-foot power cord. Aprilaire E070: 70 pints per day at AHAM, 13-1/4 inches tall, 21-1/2 inches wide, MERV 8 filter standard with MERV 11 upgrade available, external humidistat option. Both hang from the joists on 4 isolation grommets with 3/8-inch threaded rod suspended from doubled 2x4 blocking between joists.
On the 1990s and 2000s teardown-rebuild houses on Colony Rd, Sharon Rd, and the Foxcroft grid infill — 40 to 44 inches of clearance, 10,000 to 14,000 cubic feet typical — we spec the Aprilaire E100 or the Santa Fe Ultra98 as the primary. Aprilaire E100: 100 pints per day at AHAM, 15-1/2 inches tall, 21-1/2 inches wide, MERV 8 filter with MERV 11 upgrade, wall-mount humidistat included. Santa Fe Ultra98: 98 pints per day at AHAM, 14 inches tall, 22 inches wide, MERV 13 filter, integrated humidistat. If the crawl footprint exceeds 5,000 SF or the perimeter approaches 300 linear feet, we add an AlorAir Sentinel HDi90 (90 PPD, 15 inches tall) as a supplementary unit at the far end.
Drain and condensate handling on SouthPark installs is site-specific. On the low-clearance 1960s ranches we typically use a Little Giant VCMA-15ULS condensate pump mounted on a shelf near the unit, wired to a dedicated GFCI outlet, discharging through 3/8-inch flexible tubing to daylight or to an existing plumbing stack. On the taller 1990s rebuilds with exterior grade drop, we run 5/8-inch flexible tubing by gravity to daylight through the block, freeze-protected where it exits. Power is a dedicated 20-amp circuit pulled through the Mecklenburg electrical permit at CityInspect.charlottenc.gov, home-run from the panel to a GFCI outlet mounted in the crawl within 6 feet of the unit. Never shared with any other load. Humidistat setpoint is 55 percent RH at the digital display or wall-mount depending on unit model.
Yes — SouthPark is a regular dehumidifier route. Free on-site inspection anywhere in SouthPark, fixed written quote before we touch anything.
SouthPark dehumidifier sizing is dictated by the neighborhood's housing-stock split — low-cube 1960s brick ranches at 24-to-28-inch clearance in Beverly Woods and Foxcroft need compact-form-factor units, while high-cube 1990s teardown-rebuilds at 40-plus inches on Colony Rd and Sharon Rd need units two capacity classes larger.
28210, 28211, 28226. All Mecklenburg County addresses covered.
Probably not. A 1998 Colony Rd teardown-rebuild typically has 40 to 44 inches of clearance and 10,000 to 14,000 cubic feet of crawl volume, and a Compact 70 is sized for the 1960s Beverly Woods ranch across the street at 4,500 cubic feet. On the 1998 house the Compact 70 will run 18 to 22 hours a day in a Charlotte August and still hold 62 to 68 percent RH — losing fight. Aprilaire E100 or Santa Fe Ultra98 is the correct spec for that crawl. If your unit is currently under warranty we can sometimes get the manufacturer to credit the swap, otherwise it is a straight replacement.
Yes. Compact-form-factor units are built specifically for this environment. Santa Fe Compact 70 is 12 inches tall and the Aprilaire E070 is 13-1/4 inches. Either hangs from the joists on isolation grommets with 3/8-inch threaded rod suspended from doubled 2x4 blocking. The unit sits with 10 to 12 inches of clearance above the floor liner and 2 to 3 inches below the joists — plenty of margin for airflow and for future service access. The service access is what we plan for on the install: we position the unit near the crawl door so future filter changes and coil cleaning are a reasonable belly-crawl distance.
Depends on what we do with the basement-crawl interface. If we seal the interface as part of the encapsulation scope, the crawl gets a dedicated dehumidifier sized for the crawl volume alone — typically a Santa Fe Compact 70 or an Aprilaire E070 for a Barclay Downs crawl footprint. The basement continues to be conditioned by the house HVAC as it always has. If we leave the interface open — which is sometimes preferred for airflow reasons — the dehumidifier has to serve the combined volume and needs to be sized bigger, typically an Aprilaire E100. On most Barclay Downs jobs I recommend sealing the interface because it gives the crawl its own controlled environment without depending on the basement's HVAC to keep up.
You need the dedicated circuit. Sharing the crawl light circuit is how you wake up to a swamp on a Sunday morning in July — nuisance trip on the shared circuit at 2 a.m., dehumidifier off for 30 hours before anybody notices, crawl RH climbs to 85 percent, condensation drips off every cold surface, and the encapsulation is compromised before you catch it. Mecklenburg electrical permit pulled through CityInspect.charlottenc.gov covers the dedicated circuit — home-run from the panel to a GFCI outlet within 6 feet of the unit. Not optional. We pull the permit and coordinate the electrical inspection as part of the scope.
Free on-site SouthPark inspection. Fixed written quote. Call (980) 227-1769 or book below.