insulation under floor

[Lou]

I have a manufactured house on a basement. Some people tell me that I should remove the insulation between the floor joists because the plastic that holds it up can trap moisture and cause problems later down the road to the floor. Is this true?
Also the water pipe that went to the outside spicket came loose because they didn't put a star retaining washer on the plastic line and soaked the insulation thus I had to remove about 30' of plastic and insulation anyway. Should I just go ahead and remove all the plastic and insulation under my floor?

[Tracy]

You can go either way. If you remove the plastic, the insulation will fall out, but if your basement isn't well insulated, you're just throwing away money. The concern that people are talking about when dealing with the plastic belly is that water leaks can go unseen for awhile. Until there is enough water in the belly to cause it to sag noticably. Honestly, I'd leave it, just make sure you go down to the basement and look up at the belly periodically to make sure you don't have any areas that are sagging alot. Keep in mind that the weight of the insulation does make the plastic sag a little. You need to be on the look out for areas that seem to sag suddenly, or when you hit them, they are hard, kind of like hitting a waterbed.

Tracy