Is Radon Over-Hyped? (floor, foundation, furnace, Lowes)

[Southside Shrek]

Is radon over-hyped? After reading several articles about radon in homes and seeing the extent of the radon remediation industry which has grown up in the past couple of decades, I believe it is indeed over-hyped.

If a house with a basement tests 4.6 for radon, then radon remediation companies invariably want to sell the person a system which costs around $800 to $1,000. Most companies don't even want to look at the home but write up estimates over the phone and fax or email them. The system essentially consists of ugly white PVC piping and an exhaust fan to suck the radon out of the basement. Who wants to have ugly plumbing pipe hung on the exterior of their $400K to $500K home?

There are many easier and cheaper fixes which are not as cosmetically displeasing. For example, just installing a $30 bathroom type exhaust fan in the basement furnace room where the sump pump pit is can probably bring the radon level down through a turnover of air.

[garth]

No, I don't think it's overhyped. In fact, I think its underhyped because too many buyers are unaware of the issue and too many builders are doing nothing. For me, I have walked away from 3 home purchases over the past year due to high radon levels in each of them.

. . . and yes, I don't like the idea of a big ugly pipe outside the side of the house, or running behind closets inside the house. Instead, the house should have been built with passive mitigation in place while it was being framed. That way, everything would already be in the walls, just like all other vents and plumbing pipes, and a powered fan would only be added if necessay.

If the house is old, built before people were aware of radon, then there's a reason for it not being there. If it was built in the last 10 years, there's no reason for not putting the pipes in during construction. It's cheap to do at the time of construction. However, so many houses were built without codes, or limited codes in this country, or were built by "cousin Goofy" who read every self-help book on home building and thinks he knows everything, or were put together by some big production builder that tries to cheap out wherever they can just so they can save one dollar on thousands of home, that it never gets done.

BTW, another reason I didn't want any of the high radon houses, beyond the current health problems (per EPA 2nd cause of lung cancer behind smoking), was the requirement to disclose it even after it has been remediated. Although some sates might have lax disclosure requirements, other states are very strict.

In stricter states, and increasingly everywhere else, radon disclosure should be no different than than any other disclosure of previously repaired problems. Pervious water leaks come to mind. It makes the house harder to sell in the future and worth less today, which not everyone wants to inherit.

So, is that the situation that you're facing?

BTW, a proper fix is more than just adding a fan in the basement wall. It depends on the circustances and type of foundation. For a basement, and I'm not a radon professional by any means but I have investigated resolutions due to my past purchase experiences, it involves creating a negative pressure under the slab and then venting the underslab gas before it reaches the interior of the home. Such a system requires sealing of cracks, cutting a hole in the floor, digging a pit under the basement slab, and putting in an exhaust pipe to allow a path of least resistance for the radon.

By only adding an exhaust fan in the basement, you could be causing another problem. It's possible that you would create a negative pressure in the basement, which would then pull more air/radon into the basement from the soil. It would be trying to equalize the pressures. Even if you add additional openings so outside ar tries to fill the void instead of air from the ground, what do you do during the winter? I don't know where you're located, but if you have freezing winter weather, are you willing to fill your basement with freezing air or would you be closing things to keep your pipes from freezing during that season? I don't think such a solution is appropriate in many circumstances.

There are tested methods for remediating radon. Professional companies will use those methods. As for companies not coming out to look at the best way to fix your problem, such a situation sounds just a like a poor contractor in any skill. Go elsewhere and find a better company that will actually come to your house and review the entire situation.

ON EDIT: In case you haven't been to this site, here's a link to the EPA page on Radon: Click Here, and a direct quote from the page that speaks directly to the point: "Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in America and claims about 20,000 lives annually."

Good luck with your situation.

[garth]

Let me add something else that might clarify your situation. It involves one house that we considered buying and tested for radon about 4 months ago.

It had a 4' tall crawl space foundation with a partial slab and a properly installed vapor sheet on the rest of the ground. We were also exiting the winter season, so all of the vents around the perimeter of the home had been closed.

We ran the radon test in the lowest livable area, which was the main floor and not the crawl space. It returned a 14 cPi/L!!! Remeber the action level is only a 4 and the EPA's goal is to get all houses below a 2.

Well, we liked the house, so we thought that maybe things were so bad because the vents had been closed for months. We had the seller open the vents, air out the crawl space and house, and conducted another test as described above at our additional expense. This time it came back with a 20!!! Well, we walked away from the house.

Whatever the mechanism was that resulted in the higher level, I suggest that it could have been due to the ventilation. It's conceivable that it's just like blowing across the top of a straw that has it's other end in a liquid, the liquid will begin to rise in the straw. It was due to a negative pressure being created in the straw, which is possilbly the same mechanism in our second test. It would pull more radon into the space and eventually into the home.

Even if the mechanism turned out to be something else, levels of 14 and 20 are nowhere near reasonable. It also happened to be in a region of the country and area of the state where everyone told us, "Oh, radon's not a problem around here. Why are you wasting your money on those tests." Yeah, right . . . have a nice day.

[Southside Shrek]

Garth
I fully agree with many of your thoughts and comments. Cheap builders cut corners and don't do what they should be doing on the front end to avoid problems, especially in areas where radon levels are known to be generally elevated. The realtor said he lives in a 4+ radon level home without a remediation system and acts like it's no big deal for the area.

yes I am facing a situation as a prospective Buyer of a 13 yr old house where a radon test in the lower level/walk out basement came back at 4.6. Checked around with some of the neighbors and none of them have radon remediation systems. In fact the ones I spoke with seemed oblivious to it.

I haven't talked with one radon mediator who proposed digging a pit under the basement floor to shove in the PVC pipe in order to collect and route out radon gas. They propose shoving the pipe down into the sump pit and then running it outside with a radon fan installed in it. The sump pit in the basement furnace room is supposed to be tied in with the perimeter foundation drain tiles (presumably).

[garth]

Hummm, I wish I still had my links for you about radon mitigation solutions. I deleted all of them because I ended up buying a house with a radon level about 1.

During my readings, this is what I found. The pipe that goes into the pit needs to be sealed where it enters the slab. It needs to be sealed because the intent and design is to pull the air/radon before it enters the home's interior.

Wihtout having the pipe sealed, how effective is it going to be at doing that task? I don't think it will be very effective. It will pull from whatever source has the least resistance, which will be the interior air of the room. The air/radon from the ground will present a lot more resistance so there will be little effect on it.

In fact, if the air is being pulled from the general basement area, that's when we get into the negative pressure issue, especially on a very tight house. It would just encourage more radon to enter the living area.

There's another issue about venting out the side of the house. The vent needs to be away from any windows or doors. There's an established distance, but I don't recall exactly how far it is. Perhaps there's a radon professional that can give that information. I think it might be 10', but don't hold me to that number.

I'll see if I can find one of those old links with descriptions of mitigation systems. If I can find one, I'll post it for you.

ON EDIT: I stand corrected on one issue. It's the one about using the sump hole. Click here for a link to an EPA page that has a general picture of a mitigation system. It shows a pipe going to the sump hole for a part of the system.

I would expect that the pipe still needs to be sealed from interior air, otherwise those other issues come into play. However, it appears that sealing is possible.

Click here for another link. It is a discussion from a company, but it has a section that addresses the venting-only idea. It's down in the "Other radon remediation ideas" section. It says in part, "There is a common belief that radon should be reduced by venting the basement. But depending on the house construction and tightness, it may actually increase the inflow of radon from the ground. The high energy losses in heated or conditioned air make this method impractical."

This same site also shows sump suction as 90-99% effective at reducing radon. That might be a good option, as long as the vent pipe is routed to your satisfaction.

I hope that's helped a little. Good luck.

[Southside Shrek]

thank you very much Garth. much appreciated.


as far as sealing the sump pit hole, the guy didn't mention that. He also said nothing about the other sewer pump pit hole in the basement floor about 7 to 8 ft away from the sump pit. all of this is in the furnace room in the northwest corner of the full walk out level/basement.

I noticed that the Sellers had weatherstripping installed at the bottom of an interior door leading to the furnace room. One could assume they were trying to stop a draft or block radon from entering the lower level. I don't put weatherstripping on the bottom of any of my interior doors except for the front and back doors.

[Southside Shrek]

Garth,
After reading that article (Radon Mitigation Methods for Homes) I have noticed other homes in the area with their radon suck/exhaust fans positioned just a foot or two above ground level outside next to the basement foundation. according to the article, they should be at least 10 feet above ground level. hmmm. What are these radon remediation system installers doing? Methinks some companies are making a lot of money without adhering to installation guidelines. and what are the folks at the County Health Department doing about this? it appears nothing.

[garth]

Originally Posted by Southside Shrek

Garth,
Methinks some companies are making a lot of money without adhering to installation guidelines.

Yup. Sounds reasonable to me.

How about this . . . To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "Cheap is as cheap does." Maybe those are the low bid installations.

One last thing, here's the line from that web page that bothered me most about a remediated house: "Fan-based radon mitigation systems tend to raise concern in potential home buyers, who may have never heard of radon. Real estate agents agree that they significantly reduce the market value of the house."

Even though the radon problem was being vented away (note I didn't say "fixed"), there would still a value issue. Especially in a buyers market, like we have in many markets today, such a house with a radon problem would be impossible or the last to sell when there were another 3 or 4 equally satisfactory houses for sale without radon problems.

That's why I always walked away. It was someone elses problem that I didn't want to inherit. They would have needed to drop the price waaaay too much to make the home of any value to me.

[Southside Shrek]

I guess they position the radon exhaust fan close to the ground so it's easier to get at to replace it when it burns out. It would really be super ugly seeing a large radon exhaust fan connected to 4 to 6 inch diameter PVC piping 10 feet above ground level. all guests coming to the house would look up and ask what that big thing is that the plumber left suspended in the air.

I am getting close to the point of demanding that they break up the entire concrete basement floor, install a proper radon shield, then repour the concrete floor and Voila!!!! a radon shielded lower level.

[JBrown]

Originally Posted by garth

ON EDIT: "Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in America and claims about 20,000 lives annually."

.

Hmmm...it's been a few years and i don't have the info infront of me,and i'm not going to do a bunch of surfing just to prove a point but....

I seem to recall that that study was debunked years ago.... typical EPA non-sense. They took some info about cancers due to radiation etc and extrapolated the Pa-jesus out of it. Of course they never actually consulted with medical research folks who would have told them that the effects versus exposure and the like...Thus you cannot simply draw a straight line thru a couple of datum points and get meaningful stats. Not all science is like your high school general science projects. Most things in the real world are very non-linear.

The one "good" thing that that study did was get the EPA a whole bunch of new funding to look at the "problem...funny how that works huh .....and as we know it started a whole new sub industry of inspectors etc.....