Smart Vents installed in Jersey Shore Lavellette home

Challenge

Cowleys offers an array of specialized home improvements in addition to pest and wildlife control. Our home improvements focus on water and moisture control, which is enemy #1 for homeowners. Water intrusion and moisture causes significant property damage, and creates an inviting environment for insects and other pests. 

We recently installed Smart Vents for a homeowner in the Borough of Lavallette, situated on the Barnegat Peninsula in Ocean County. Lavallette and the surrounding communities on or near the Peninsula were especially hard hit by Sandy floodwaters. Property claims for Ocean County ran into the billions. For Lavallete, even though its land mass is less than 1 square mile and has less than 1000 households, according to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), more than $115 million in claims were paid to Lavellete residents through 2013.

For Jersey Shore homeowners with crawl spaces or basements who reside in flood hazard areas, especially NFIP-designated V Zones and A Zones, Cowleys, as a Basement Systems dealer, is licensed to install Smart Vents. Smart Vents are FEMA and NFIP compliant foundation flood vents that prevent foundation walls from collapsing by equalizing hydrostatic pressure. Hydrostatic pressure is destructive, powerful, relentless water pressure of unbelievable force that can reach tens of thousands of pounds of pressure. Hydrostatic pressure is strong enough to collapse dams, buckle retaining walls, and collapse home foundations. You can’t fight floodwaters from entering your home, but you can protect your property by relieving hydrostatic pressure. These vents are deemed so effective by FEMA and the National Flood Insurance program (NFIP) that homeowners who install Smart Vents can reduce their flood insurance premiums, on average, by 80%! Smart Vent has its own Flood Risk Evaluator division to ensure that Smart Vent purchasers receive the proper flood insurance rating. They can provide homeowners with an estimate of their new lower flood insurance premium at www.yourfloodrisk.com.

Smart Vents, unlike traditional air vents, open automatically and passively on their own when floodwaters reach a certain level, allowing water to freely flow in and out of crawl spaces. They do not require human intervention and no electricity is needed. The vents provide a 3-inch clearance for small debris and trash to easily pass when the vent door is opened by patented internal activation floats. For vented crawl spaces, there are Smart Vent models with a metal coil sensitive to temperature changes that opens and closes the vent louvers. Just as with water levels, the vents do not need to be opened and closed manually. They are “smart” enough to open and close on their own.

With this Lavallete home, the owner had the original mesh air vents to his crawl space and had filled in one side with cinder blocks whose holes were plugged with holes under the mistaken belief that this would help keep out floodwaters. In fact, these closed cinder blocks would have dramatically impeded water flow as the flood waters recede, creating a high risk of foundation collapse. Those with traditional mesh air vents for their crawl spaces or basements who reside in a flood zone should have them kept open. However, traditional vents are not recommended. They clog easily with debris and they do not relieve hydrostatic pressure as quickly as Smart Vents. 

Solution

The Cowleys home improvement team removed the existing vents, cleaned up area, and installed the Smart Vents. Smart Vents have a variety of models for a variety of applications and are easy to retrofit. This job was completed in a single day and the homeowner was happy that his home foundation was protected against floodwater damage and that he would enjoy significant savings on his flood insurance premium.