Crawl space work
in our own town.
Encapsulation, moisture control, and mold removal in Dagsboro — the town we work out of and know best.
We have been under a lot of these houses.
EX PRO FIX is based in Dagsboro. Not a mailing address — it is where the truck sits at night. A town this size has two distinct kinds of housing within a few streets of each other — the older places off Main Street and the newer lots out toward Vines Creek Road.
Dagsboro is small, a little over a thousand people, but it has two completely different kinds of housing sitting side by side, and they fail in two completely different ways.
Around the chapel and the older lots.
Prince George's Chapel has stood on Route 26 since 1755, and the older housing scattered around the center of town reflects that Dagsboro was built long before anybody thought about vapor barriers. What we find in those crawl spaces is usually the same three things.
Bare dirt, no barrier at all
Not torn plastic. Nothing. Soil giving off moisture into the joists twenty-four hours a day, for decades, with a set of foundation vents that were supposed to carry it away and never did.
Block piers that have shifted
Older homes here often sit on block or brick piers rather than a continuous stem wall. When the soil under a pier stays wet, it moves. That shows up upstairs as a floor that dips in one spot.
Insulation on the ground
Fiberglass batts absorb moisture, get heavy, and eventually let go. If yours are lying in the dirt, the space has been running wet for years and the wood above it has been wet right along with them.
On an older Dagsboro crawl space the barrier is only part of the job. The soil has to be graded and the water source found first, because sealing plastic over a space that is still taking on water just hides it.
The subdivisions changed the work.
Dagsboro has grown fast for a town this size. Population was 851 at the 2020 census and estimates now put it over a thousand, and most of that is new construction and vacant land being turned into subdivisions. Chapel Crossing alone is 98 townhomes.
Most homeowners are surprised by this. A crawl space built in 2021 can be in worse shape than one built in 1975. Not because it was built badly, but because a new sealed crawl space with a dehumidifier that was never plugged back in, or a vented one in this climate, can run humid from the day the builder leaves. The wood is newer. The moisture is the same.
If your home is still inside a builder warranty period, ask for moisture readings in writing. Documentation matters if the builder ends up involved, and we provide ours either way.
Not every Dagsboro job is a crawl space.
We recently finished a full bathroom remodel here in town — demolition through finish work, photographed at every stage. There was no water damage behind that tub, which is worth saying plainly — it was a remodel, not a restoration.
If you want to see what our finish work looks like when the moisture side of the job is not involved, the whole sequence is on the bathroom page.
What people here ask us.
Do you actually work in Dagsboro or just list it?
We are based here. Our address is in Dagsboro and a large share of our crawl space and remediation work is in town or within a few miles of it.
My house is new. Can it already have a crawl space problem?
Yes, it can. A newer crawl space in this climate can run humid unless something is actively controlling it. If the dehumidifier was never connected, or the space was left vented, the wood being new does not change what the ground underneath is doing. Get moisture readings documented if you are still inside a builder warranty period.
What about the older places near Prince George's Chapel?
Those are usually bare dirt with no barrier at all, often on block or brick piers instead of a continuous wall. The work there is more involved because grading and drainage almost always have to be corrected before anything gets sealed.
How does scheduling work?
We schedule the estimate first, on site and at no charge, then give you a realistic start date with the written scope. We are an owner-operated crew, so we book work honestly rather than promising a date we cannot hold.
Do you handle mold too, or do I need a second contractor?
We handle both. If there is active growth down there it gets remediated under containment before anything is sealed. Encapsulating over live mold is the single most common thing we get called in to undo.