Cost for Radon Remidiation - Wake Forest

[LeftCoastEnvy]

We just had ours mitigated last year in Morrisville. We have a walkout basement on slab foundation. It was around $1050 if I remember correctly. Our first reading on a long term test was 3.3 which I felt was too high since the basement is my young kids' playroom. Our second reading was 5.3 so I am glad we tested again. The EPA recommends possibly fixing if between 2 and 4, and definitively fixing if over 4. I am really happy with our system and subsequent readings have all been under 1.

[carcrazy67]

When the radon test comes back "high," two tests should be performed and averaged. There are many factors that can impact the accuracy of the test-including the weather. Personally, while I understand the concern when children are involved, I wouldn't be overly concerned, even at 4.0.
Here is the EPA link-fairly technical but the risk is broken down in layman's terms on the last page. Bottom line is I wouldn't be too worried unless I was a smoker or the level was very high.
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/as...2-r-03-003.pdf

[Bpobill]

Average I've seen is $1,250 for remediation which includes retesting from a 3rd party company. I can provide a great referral if you need one. I Also have a great person who does the test for $115. Just send me a DM. I have used both on several occasions.

[Sky1]

I want very low levels 1 PCL if possible.

[boardjnky4]

If you're buying a house and asking for money from the sellers for remediation, then I would start at $1500. They're definitely going to try and negotiate it down, so start high. Accept $1,000.

[JeanAndTomNC]

Our system (crawl) was about $1,800 installed, but that's with 20 mil vapor barrier wrapped up around piers and concrete wall and a large crawl space. If you already have a good seal job in the crawl it could cost less I'm sure, size of crawl matters.

One thing we learned during the experience is you absolutely must not trust short-term test results, and the same goes for "you don't have to worry about radon in this area". Yes your life (at least the longevity of it) will likely depend on it.

Where we live, we were told radon is not generally a problem. When we bought the house we tested in the 2.5-3.0 range. Tested once a year around the same time with short-term tests, same thing. Bought a continual running test unit (about $100+) with alarm, and found out that certain times of the year radon levels were spiking up to the 15pcl range!!! That's pretty much "please give us cancer as quickly as possible" levels.

Moral of the story is that radon levels can fluctuate greatly from month to month. All of the homes around you can have very low levels year round, while your home has a severe problem. It's incredibly unpredictable and there's no way to know without year-round monitoring.

There is no such thing as a safe level of radon. Research this and you'll see it's true. However, outside air rarely has zero levels, so it just comes down to what level is acceptable without causing an exponential increase in cancer incidences? Well the EPA set that level at 4.0 but it does not mean anyone should settle for a level of 4.0. If you're at 3.xpcl certain times of year, you could be spiking past 12pcl other times of year.

So one strategy is buy a continuous monitor and see how bad the problem really is. I personally would mitigate if my average was over 3.0. If you do need to mitigate the total cost for a crawl will probably depend on the number of piers. The cost of remediation will still be a fraction of the cost of even one family member getting early stage cancer, even with the best health ins. plans available. Radon is second in cancer causing agents only to smoking, and is the leading cause of cancer in non-smokers. It can lead to other non-cancerous respiratory diseases as well, and cancers other than the lungs.

Not something to mess around with.

-Jean

[carcrazy67]

Jean and Tom,
Time dictates that short term tests are typically all that are available to those in real estate transactions. Most companies that test for radon use equipment that is far more accurate than the $100 continuous tester. Those machines are typically +/- a couple of picocuries. You are correct when you state that radon fluctuate, however, those inexpensive testers are very susceptible to significanly inaccurate readings when there are periods of low barimetric pressure (such as during a thunderstorm). All the curves I've seen would indicate that the increase in lung cancer is actually a linear relationship not exponential. If you observe the EPA chart, at 4.0 picocuries the chance of cancer is actually pretty low. Further evaluation of the fine print indicates these rates are for exposure over a lifetime. In reality, unless one is a shut-in, you are unlikely to be exposed to the levels 24/7 over a lifetime. The level of radon in free air is generally around .4 to .5 picocuries-not 0. Radon can indeed be anywhere, however statistically there are areas where it is likely, such as Wakefield, or Rock Quarry road and others such as off exit 312 where it is not. People who have a concrete slab, basement or sealed crawl are more likely to have an issue although I've seen it in unsealed crawlspaces several times (North Ridge area). Highest I've seen around here was over 140 off of Rock Quarry road. It was remediated down to less than 2 pico curies.
Remediations costs these days have dropped quite a bit as there are multiple companies that will remediate. Unless the house is quite large I would anticipate between $900-$1200. By the way, I have seen houses with systems that still had radon above the EPA recommended level.

[JeanAndTomNC]

Originally Posted by carcrazy67

Jean and Tom,
Time dictates that short term tests are typically all that are available to those in real estate transactions. Most companies that test for radon use equipment that is far more accurate than the $100 continuous tester. Those machines are typically +/- a couple of picocuries. You are correct when you state that radon fluctuate, however, those inexpensive testers are very susceptible to significanly inaccurate readings when there are periods of low barmetric pressure (such as during a thunderstorm). All the curves I've seen would indicate that the increase in lung cancer is actually a linear relationship not exponential. If you observe the EPA chart, at 4.0 picocuries the chance of cancer is actually pretty low. Further evaluation of the fine print indicates these rates are for exposure over a lifetime. In reality, unless one is a shut-in, you are unlikely to be exposed to the levels 24/7 over a lifetime. The level of radon in free air is generally around .4 to .5 picocuries-not 0. Radon can indeed be anywhere, however statistically there are areas where it is likely, such as Wakefield, or Rock Quarry road and others such as off exit 312 where it is not. People who have a concrete slab, basement or sealed crawl are more likely to have an issue although I've seen it in unsealed crawlspaces several times (North Ridge area). Highest I've seen around here was over 140 off of Rock Quarry road. It was remediated down to less than 2 pico curies.
Remediations costs these days have dropped quite a bit as there are multiple companies that will remediate. Unless the house is quite large I would anticipate between $900-$1200. By the way, I have seen houses with systems that still had radon above the EPA recommended level.

carcrazy67,

Yes I understand short-term tests are all that's possible for real estate transactions. My comments were for homeowners already in the home (obviously in a position to long-term test). Our inexpensive radon tester results were compared with a high-end Femto-Tech rental (several thousand dollars) unit that produced a running real-time log of radon results over the long term. No doubt the more expensive machine was more accurate, but what we found is that our $100 gave an excellent relative measure that aligned with the professional grade machine. Results were consistent with what you said, plus or minus a couple of measurement units but the point was to watch the fluctuations go from something like 2.5 to 15+, and realizing what that means to our lungs. The biggest issue with the inexpensive testing device is that peaks in the radon levels would get averaged in, so for example if the reading was 3.5, the more expensive machine would realize it was really peaking (for shorter periods of time) closer to 20pcl (scary right! Well that's the problem with charcoal test kits too). So yes if you have access to one of the more expensive units (my husband had access to renting one) then great, but for most it is not practical to have one of these on in their residence 24x7, thus my recommendation for the inexpensive variety, and keeping in mind the margin of error will give the homeowner a reasonable picture of their radon situation. +/- 2 pcl is usually not going to make a difference in a decision to act or not anyway.

My comments about exponential cancer incidence were not limited to the effects of radon alone. Every human being is subject to carcinogens every day, and which ones and how much act like multiplicative variables in the radon risk equation. There are genetic factors that also play into the cancer incidence equation which would have a huge impact on whether the impact of radon at various levels is linear vs exponential. The EPA is not the final word on cancer risk by any measure, their estimates are only meant as a general regulatory informative guideline that looks at only a couple of variables.

Unsealed crawlspaces are the least likely to have a radon problem. Sealing the vents is a huge culprit, in fact when we first discovered our radon issue the first thing we did is open the vents and the radon dropped to safe levels! This means that the increasing trend of sealed crawlspaces may very well lead to increase in incidence of cancer and/or respiratory problems.

The cost I quoted was for an unusually large crawlspace, with some extra things done as part of the job, most folks cost would not be that high I'm guessing.

-Jean