We have a module home. The crawl space is 4 ft high. The outside crawlspace is brick. We have vents that open and close depending on the weather. A few months ago we had a water heater leak. We used fans to try and dry the floors in side the home and under. We also opened all vents to dry out under the house. Now, there is a bad smell in one of the rooms if we close the door for any length of time. There are no windows in this bathroom to open. After the ground was dry my husband thought that he would but a barrier on the ground to keep the condensation from coming into the house. We have not had any issues with warping floors or squeaks. He is under the impression that we need to have a barrier down. Now under the plastic is very wet. Question is should we leave the plastic down or pull it up. We do not have any sprinkler system or other water leaks. - It is just coming from the ground.
thanks

I work for a modular/manufactured home dealer/installer in Ohio so I understand modular homes and crawlspaces under them. What you should have done as soon as you had a hot water leak was to have a dehumidifier running and properly extracted the moisture from the floor. I had a hot water leak in a mobile home I lived in a few years ago and I ran a dehumidifier for 4 days and got gallons and gallons of water out of the room where it leaked. You should not put down any plastic barrier under the house in the crawlspace. You need to rely on the vents opening and closing instead. In the meantime I would strongly suggest that you invest in a dehumidifier and run it non stop in the room that smells for about 3-4 days and get all the remaining moisture out of the floor. You don't want to have mold or mildew in your home and now you are just inviting mildew and mold by not properly getting all the moisture out of the floor. If you do get mold and mildew you will have to have it professionally removed at a small fortune. I hope it has not been too long since you had the hot water leak as you could successfully remove all the moisture from the floor. Good luck!

Also, do you have gutters on your home and have the water properly channelled away from the home when it rains? This could help keep your crawlspace dry as well. You want to keep the crawlspace as dry as possible from water intrusion such as rainwater. We install gutters and downspouts on all our homes that have basements and crawlspaces. The cost is usually $3-$5 a foot installed for seamless gutters. I did my own on my house and saved a bundle but mine are not seamless.