We have about a 2300 sq ft Schult ( built in Kansas and shipped here – company now out of business, we understand ) UBC modular home that was put in a foundation on our lot for us, in a Denver suburb. It’s about 80×30 feet.

It came with insulation and plastic under the bottom, which makes it darn near impossible to improve anything. Since having it built here in 2005, we’ve had the crawl space insulated and sealed – they sealed the vents and insulated the side walls, and sealed them to the bottom plastic ground covering.

The house is so long though, that no matter how hot we make the water heater at one end, the hot water in the tub at the other end is barely warm. It must be 100 feet away. ( diagonally ) A handyman offered to do one of those hot cold links with a recirc pump, but the distance would still leave it too cool when it gets there.

But I’m wondering about this now: What if we hired someone to just take down and remove that plastic sheeting, without hurting anything else. Then we’d have insulation between the floor joists, right? But it could be removed and at least a fully insulated full hot water loop could be added? ( the plumbing is all PEX by the way )

But that plastic isn’t sealed anyway, doesn’t really hold the insulation in place ( the plastic is sagging ) and it seems like it wouldn’t hurt us energy wise to just remove it, right?