Why I Started a Crawl Space Company

I was selling heating and cooling systems, which meant I spent a lot of time in attics and crawl spaces. Most of them were exactly what you'd expect—dark, musty, full of dust and debris. Places nobody wanted to be.

Then I hopped down into an encapsulated crawl space for the first time.

It was incredible. Clean. Bright. No smell. I could actually stand up and move around without feeling like I needed a shower the second I got out.

I remember thinking, "This is what a crawl space should look like."

That moment stuck with me. For years, actually. I kept coming back to it, kept thinking about the difference between that space and all the nasty ones I'd been in. I didn't know it at the time, but that was the beginning of everything that led to My Guys.

I got into home services in 2017 because I wanted to work with people and solve real problems. HVAC seemed like a good fit—every home needs heating and cooling, and I liked the idea of being the person who could help.

The work took me all over Central Illinois. Hundreds of homes. Hundreds of attics and crawl spaces. And almost every single crawl space I saw was a mess. Moisture. Mold. Deteriorating insulation. Spaces that were actively making the home above them worse.

But every now and then, I'd see one that had been properly encapsulated. The difference was night and day.

I started researching what encapsulation actually was. How it worked. Why it mattered. The more I learned, the more intrigued I became. This wasn't just about making a space look better—it was about fundamentally improving how a home functioned.

I bounced around between a few different HVAC companies over those years, never quite finding the right fit. But that fascination with crawl space work kept nagging at me. I just didn't know how to make the jump yet.

Then things got personal.

My wife has ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease that means we have to be really careful about her environment. Anything that affects air quality, we have to pay attention to. It's not optional.

So I started going down the rabbit hole on indoor air quality. What makes it better, what makes it worse, and what we could actually control in our own home.

That's when I learned something that changed how I saw crawl space work entirely: about 50% of the air you breathe upstairs comes from your crawl space.

Think about that. Half the air in your home is pulling up from that space under your feet. If your crawl space is full of moisture, mold, dust, and deteriorating materials, that's what you're breathing. If it's clean, sealed, and properly dehumidified, your indoor air quality improves dramatically.

This wasn't just interesting anymore. This was about my wife's health. This was about being able to help her feel better in our own home.

And it hit me: if this matters this much for us, it matters for a lot of other people too. People with asthma. People with allergies. Families who just want cleaner air and don't even realize their crawl space is the problem.

Crawl space work wasn't just construction. It was health. It was protecting families. That's when I knew this was something I wanted to do—not just as a job, but as a mission.

A few years later, an opportunity came up to work for a national foundation repair company. They did crawl space encapsulation, drainage systems, floor supports—everything I'd been curious about.

I jumped at it.

This was my chance to actually learn the work. Not just see the finished product, but understand how to design solutions, install systems, and fix real problems under homes.

I learned crawl space drainage. How to properly install vapor barriers. How dehumidification systems work. How to support sagging floors. How to assess foundation issues and determine what actually needs to be fixed versus what can wait.

For the first time, I wasn't just admiring good crawl space work from the outside. I was doing it. Designing it. Understanding every detail of what made the difference between a job done right and a job done halfway.

This was the education I needed. And it confirmed what I'd suspected for years: I loved this work. The problem-solving. The tangible impact. The fact that you could completely transform a home starting from the bottom up.

But working for that national company also taught me something else—something that would eventually push me to start My Guys.

I started paying attention to what we were charging customers versus what the work actually cost.

The gap was massive.

I'm not talking about a reasonable markup to cover overhead and make a profit. I'm talking about charges that were two, sometimes three times what the materials and labor actually ran.

So I started running my own numbers. What does the vapor barrier really cost? What does a dehumidifier cost? How long does a proper installation actually take if you're focused and efficient? What would it cost if I did the work myself, maybe with a helper or two?

The answer: I could charge way less than these big companies and still run a profitable business. Not just survive—actually thrive. And I could deliver a better product while doing it.

Big national companies have huge overhead. Corporate structures. Multiple divisions. Regional managers. Marketing budgets. All of that gets passed down to you, the homeowner. You're not just paying for crawl space work—you're paying for their entire operation.

I didn't have any of that. It would just be me and Chris. Small. Focused. Owner-operated.

That meant I could give people a fair price, take better care of them, and do higher quality work. Not because I was cutting corners, but because I wasn't carrying all that corporate weight.

That's when I knew. It was time to start My Guys.

Here's the thing about most contractors: crawl space work is just one service among many. They'll do it if you ask, but it's not their focus. They're trying to be everything to everyone.

Chris and I made a different choice. We only do crawl space work.

Floor supports for sagging or squeaky floors. Encapsulation. Drainage systems. Sump pumps. Dehumidification. Rodent protection. If it's under your house, we handle it. If it's not, we don't.

That specialization matters. When you do one thing all day, every day, you get really good at it. You see problems other people miss. You know the right solutions because you've done them hundreds of times. You're not figuring it out as you go—you already know.

We're committed to being the best crawl space company in Central Illinois. Not the biggest. Not trying to expand into five other states. Just the best at what we do, right here where we live.

When you call us, you're getting specialists. People who chose this work, studied it, and do nothing but this. That's a completely different experience than calling a general contractor who happens to offer crawl space services.

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A dirty crawl space containing discarded items like a jug, glasses, and tools, with the text

What We Found Left Behind in This Crawl Space

By Jeff Robinson • April 8, 2026

So we're in the middle of cleanup on this crawl space encapsulation job here in Central Illinois, and I'm pulling out stuff that has no business being down here. A hammer. Reading glasses. A gallon jug someone turned into a funnel—and honestly, I don't even want to know what they needed that for.