Metal Skirting Vents Questions – Mobile Home, Home, and Buildings

Updated 1-8-23

Phil teaches you why he doesn’t use vents in metal skirting. We’ve had many questions about how to handle the moisture under your manufactured home.

Do you need vents for your trailer’s metal skirting? No, not as far as we have seen in over 30 years.

⏱️⏱️Chapters⏱️⏱️
00:00 Do you need vents in your metal skirting?
00:46 No, doesn’t make a difference
01:15 If you have an air conditioner you might consider
01:40 We want vents for???
02:00 Houses have vents in the foundation, the foundation becomes a damn
03:00 The problem with mobile homes and water leak is the underpinning becomes a pond
03:30 If you do the skirting like we show you, it does have vents
04:30 You have vents with every rib
04:50 No, you do not need vents
05:30 You have a decision, if you want to put vents you can…
05:50 Don’t put plastic down underneath your mobile home because you already have plastic in the underbelly
06:15 Never had a call back in over 30 years for no vents.

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Transcript:
Well, today, folks, we’re going to have the answer as far as I’m concerned for the question about vents in metal skirting. When I first started out, usually customers say, well, are you going to put some events in? I was like ya I’ll put some vents in.

And there it’s really difficult to do because skirting metal skirting has ribs. You end up having build trim around it for it to sit on, and it still ends up actually funneling water in from the rain. But after a while, which I’ve done into the hundreds of metal skirting jobs, you get to realizing that it’s not making any difference if there’s a water leak. The water doesn’t stay underneath the house because the j-channel sits on the ground, even if it’s sitting on concrete. It’s never going to hold the water. You just run past, run through and by the way, water runs from uphill underneath the house and so on.

Matter of fact, I would recommend that if you have an air conditioner installed, even secondary air conditioner you might consider, you should tell them to have the air conditioner down hillside so that the water that runs. They quite often run the drain line.

You particularly want the drain line to go downhill because if it goes uphill, it would go underneath the house like we’re talking about. So, then the water stays. OK, so the question gets to be, we want vents for the fact that water might get underneath the house.

Invariably, water does get underneath the house because that skirting does not hold the water from getting underneath the house. Guess what? It’s the same rule that water doesn’t stay underneath the house, either. Now. Houses have vents in the foundation because they have that foundation. It dug into the ground sometimes 16, 18, 20 inches and then made flats so they can put blocks. So, it’s literally made a dam for water to be holding this concrete, even whereas mobile home generally doesn’t have that. But even if it did, the skirting would not hold the water in like a block wall would.

So, you need to figure out a way to let that water get away. Also, a house doesn’t normally have plastic on the bottom of it. It just has the insulation. So, they put plastic on the ground. Then you have even more of an issue of the water once it gets in there, safe from a water leak in the house. Once the water gets in there, it stays in there. It’s a pond because the plastic is holding the water and therefore you need a vent. None of these situations are generally what we have with a house or a mobile home.

If you use a metal skirting, you don’t have a block, you’re not going to put that skirting over the block unless you’re just looking for a better decoration. So. first, let’s see. With metal skirting, do we actually have no vents if we just lay it the way I have been showing you?

Actually, that’s not true. If you look on the back side here, can we zoom in? That skirting goes against the wall, it generally and I mean, it’s rare that you ever get to the trim on top to sit flat against, usually you have that much room.

Now every one of these ribs opens up into here. So, if we’re concerned about a lot of hot water from a leaking hot water heater or a major water leak, first of all, that’s your thing you need to fix. Second of all, you have a plastic barrier on the bottom of the house. Thirdly, if you put plastic on the bottom like that, see a lot of new houses doing now you know you’re actually contributing to holding water there.

So, you have vents with underneath this cover with every one of these ribs breathing out, OK? Does it let wind blow through? No, it doesn’t. But wind blowing by actually creates a vacuum, and it literally pulls from the bottom.

But do you need vents? No. I have 18 mobile homes, rentals and I have worked on umpteen hundreds that have not had vents. And I’ve been underneath the house many, many years and including this mobile home park here that we’re at ten years not ever had an issue with not having vents.

Not ever. We just went to Engineer’s house, and he created a skirting system which is different than mine. He used to tin and ran it this way, which a little a little bit on the tacky side. But it works, and he’s got an insulated no vents.

That’s an engineer. Now we have a decision. If you want to put vents in, you can. Do you need them? No, you don’t need them. The enemy that you have is water that stays underneath the house. It is not that you don’t have vents.

I promise you don’t put plastic down underneath your mobile home because you already have plastic to protect the bottom of the mobile. So therefore, the vapor cannot get to it, cannot run the floors, da-da-dada, vents can actually be your enemy.

How if you forget, or if you don’t get those vents closed all the way in the wintertime, that cold air gets underneath freezes your pipes quicker. You don’t need vents. You can argue all you want to. You can go with whatever discussion you want to.

But I’m telling you, for 15 years, I’ve installed metal skirting no vents. And guess what? No calls back. No calls back. Hundreds of metal skirting jobs. Never had a problem with not having vents. Make your own decisions. Put vents in if you want it, but I’ve never had a callback.

Thank you, guys. Hope you learn something a little bit more. I’m happy to share with you all the things that have happened. I want your life to be better. Thank you again.