Radon in Your Home

[George Bokros]

i have been investigating this issue since now three houses on my street have installed radon mitigation systems. What is radon, it is caused by the decomposition of radioactive material, usually uranium, in the soil. It can enter your home through the basement walls foundation and floor cracks and through the sump pump crock.

EPA recommended level at which to take action is 4 picoCuries. What is a picoCurie, a picoCurie is 1 trillionth of Curie (Curie is an international measurement of radioactivity). One pCi/l (picoCure) means that in one liter of air there will be 2.2 radioactive disintegrations per minute. My basement measured 4.0 and 4.6 pCi on two seven days tests.

Further research found says that you would need to be exposed 20 hrs per day for 70 years to a level of 4pCi to develop lung cancer. This being said radon exposure is the SECOND leading cause of lung cancer in the US. Approximately 20,000 cases per year caused by radon exposure.

I have a quote to seal my sump pump crock and put is a fan that runs 24 / 365 drawing air from under the foundation through the sump pump crock exhausting it to the outside. Not a terrible costly install $850 quote from two contractors. This is a DC powered fan consuming about what at 60 watt light bulb does or $36/year to operate. The life of the fan is ~3 -5 yrs at a cost of ~$150.

Wife and I are not sure if we will do this mitigation install or not at this point.

What are your thoughts? Would you do it? My wood shop is in the basement.

George

[Steve Wurster]

Our house had a radon mitigation system already in it when we bought it. Don't know if the original owner installed it or the second owner (we're the third; house is only 12 years old, we've been there for 6). Our general area is known for radon, but I don't if any of my neighbors have a system.

Over the holidays the fan started making some noises, so I had somebody come out and replace it. He charged around $500 for about 20 minutes of work, which was actually cheaper than another quote I got. He warrants the fan for 5 years I think. The same fan is about $200 new so if it dies after his warranty period I'm going to buy it and replace it myself. That charge was just way too expensive.

Anyway, he gave us a short term (max 7 days) radon test and the numbers came back in too high. The EPA recommends doing another long-term test, so I bought one online and set it up in my basement. I'll probably wait until the summer to send it in for analysis. We have 2 sump pumps and they're both sealed, so if we have a radon leak I'm not sure where it's coming from.

[David Weaver]

FIL came up with a measure of 54 or 57 or something (not a typo) and installed mitigation (as in he installed it after deciding that there wasn't a great reason to pay someone else much to do it) and now sees a rate of 1.2.

I came up with 1.7 in my house when I moved in and had it tested.

I wouldn't rely quite so heavily on what the studies say the exposure level needs to be to develop cancer (at least not to the minutiae level), you'll never really know anything other than the general statement that radon can cause cancer, and that maybe the causation is easier to prove at very high levels. There has been some hedging on what levels really cause excess mortality and how much of it, if it's working in combination with something else, etc. There's also no great reason to believe that radon either by itself or in combination with other things couldn't cause you to develop lung cancer at a lower exposure level than what is provided as the gold standard for going over the line (the 70 years at 20 hours a day, etc), or that long term exposure above the line would have too much effect if you weren't exposed to gobs of it.

I can't remember the name of the guy who was working at a nuke plant installation and setting off the radioactivity detectors on the way in back in the 70s, but he was getting a megadose of radon and as far as i know, he's still alive and hasn't developed lung cancer.

All of that said, if I was going to sell the house, I personally would mitigate at that level or it will just come up as part of the sale. If I wasn't, and I didn't spend too much time in the basement, I probably wouldn't or maybe i'd flip a coin. I have tiny windows in my basement, jealousy style about 6x6 that are embedded in the middle of glass block, I crack both of them to allow the air to turn over a little bit more than it otherwise would. It affects the temperature very little in my basement, but this thread reminds me that I should probably get another long term exposure. My neighbors next door and across the street both have mitigation systems, so they must've tested over the limit.

[David Weaver]

Our house had a radon mitigation system already in it when we bought it. Don't know if the original owner installed it or the second owner (we're the third; house is only 12 years old, we've been there for 6). Our general area is known for radon, but I don't if any of my neighbors have a system.

Over the holidays the fan started making some noises, so I had somebody come out and replace it. He charged around $500 for about 20 minutes of work, which was actually cheaper than another quote I got. He warrants the fan for 5 years I think. The same fan is about $200 new so if it dies after his warranty period I'm going to buy it and replace it myself. That charge was just way too expensive.

Anyway, he gave us a short term (max 7 days) radon test and the numbers came back in too high. The EPA recommends doing another long-term test, so I bought one online and set it up in my basement. I'll probably wait until the summer to send it in for analysis. We have 2 sump pumps and they're both sealed, so if we have a radon leak I'm not sure where it's coming from.

Any cracks in the floor in the basement that you might not be able to see? FIL filled all of his in with some kind of gap filling stuff.

[Steve Wurster]

Any cracks in the floor in the basement that you might not be able to see? FIL filled all of his in with some kind of gap filling stuff.

One half of the basement was already finished when we moved in. And so it has carpeting on the floor, drop ceiling, and drywall walls placed just off the foundation walls. In some cases I'm not even sure how fall the foundation wall is away from the drywall-covered metal stud walls.

Other half of basement contains the heaters, water heater, etc., and my shop. That side is "bare", in that there's no floor, ceiling, or wall coverings. A few cracks in the walls that seem to be from when they poured the foundation, but nothing in the floor that I can see. Or at least not that I can think of since I'm not home right now.

My wife doesn't like the carpet on the floor down there anyway, so if the next test comes up high we might start a analysis / mitigation process by ripping up that stuff.

[David Weaver]

Stanley Watras was the name of the guy who started this whole revolution. His basement tested at 2700 picocuries (also not a typo). What is often not included in his story is that he and his family (who were living with him in the same house) are all still well. Doesn't mean they won't develop cancer later, but it does show that it's not quite equivalent to eating plutonium into your lungs.

There are excess levels of mortality measured in high exposure areas (like western iowa, etc), but it's not like people living in those places had an instant death sentence.

At the same time, the new super tight houses probably don't really help things, as a lot of the folks in those areas never lived in houses sealed as tightly as they are being made now..

[Mel Fulks]

Had my house tested ,by me ,couple years ago. Was a little over 4 . Decided to do nothing since my wife insists on letting in new air each day. The house had to be kept closed up for the test so I figure we got artificially high reading. Go figure.

[Bruce Koch]

I was just to a contractor education class recently. The instructor said the 3 highest states with radon had a death rate from lung cancer of 44 per 100000 people and the states with the lowest radon had death rate from lung cancer of 66 per 100000. Go figure.

[David Weaver]

Sniffing welding fumes all the time or or cigarettes is probably far far worse than being at a level somewhere around the limit. The mortality multiplier for smoking in some old handout I'd received was over two. That means the result of the data parsed by smoking vs. non showed that of a cohort of individuals, the smokers were over twice as likely to die each year. Not over twice as likely to die of lung cancer, but over twice as likely to die period (which is worse).

Of course, that doesn't mean that smokers may not generally have worse habits to begin with (as in, maybe it wasn't only the cigarettes). I wouldn't be surprised if cigarette smoke has radioactive material in it.

[Mike Cozad]

I replaced my fan on Sunday. Menards sells the fan for $130 and the easy cover for the sump crock for $80. The PVC pipe is less than $100. I doubt I would pay someone as easy to do and as inexpensive as the materials are...

[Lee Schierer]

I'm not sure where you obtained your facts, so I won't attempt to dispute them. However, if you intend to sell your house, now that it has been tested, I believe you are required to reveal that information, which will likely impede the sale. If other houses in the area have tested positive, it is highly likely any realtor will ask if your house has been tested.

As your research probably showed, radon is a gas. If your HVAC system picks up air from the basement, it can also pick up the radon gas and carry it through out the house. On average how many hours per day does your family spend in the house?

[John C Lawson]

When we lived in NJ, radon was a concern. Our next door neighbor on one side had a radon level of 160, on the other side it was 4. We chose to ignore it for 20 years until it was time to sell. Then the test was required by the buyer and came up with a reading of 10. We put in a remediation system for $1300. A cheap action that made the house sell. If we got hard-headed about it, the delay would have cost us more.

[Mel Fulks]

I think the advice given the other day about sealing between basement floor and walls is a good cheap step. The granite under the slab can be the source of the radon. Radon can also come from granite counter tops. Cover with whatever is new. My short period of worrying about radon was started by a 50cent used book warning .It started to fade when I called the state "hotline" and waited for days to speak with a person.

[ray hampton]

do Radon come from the wood or come thru. the wood walls

[David Weaver]

Comes generally from places that are granite-rich or other types of stones that have radium. It's getting into houses as a vapor, and probably not as a penetrant through wood walls unless there is a vapor leak.