So, I just bought a house and there's a shitton of radon but I'm in a area where that's pretty normal so anyways, does anyone have any advice on radon reduction? I've been watching some videos and reading but I wanted to know if anyone has any insight.
If your house has a basement and a sump pump, they will probably just try to sell you a simple fan in the sump setup. Somewhere around $1000 or less. Big exhaust fan sits under the concrete slab inside the sump pump pit and vents that air out of the house above the roofline. This seems to generally involve capping the sump pit, so if your basement floods as a result of a pipe burst or something, this might interfere with function of the sump. This is the system they used in the house i live in and it worked, levels went from 15ish to below 1 all the time.
I don't have a basement but I have a crawlspace, is it the same idea?
How are you even getting accumulation in your house on a crawlspace.. it’s generally a basement thing I thought
Idk bro I live in an old mining town there's radon everywhere. The EPA says the maximum before it becomes serious health issues is 4pci so obviously there's enough to go around
> capping the sump pit
This is hilarious, I’ve seen those capped pits, sealed off with mastic.
So the reason they have a sump pump in the first place is because there is no way to make the basement waterproof.
And they now want me to believe it’s now *gas tight*
No way that’s doing anything. It’s the heaviest gas in the world, it sinks anyway, so no reason to try and seal it if you’re venting it.
> vent above the roofline
Also makes no sense. It’s not sewer gas. Just vent it outside the house just above the ground line.
> two pipes, one for sump wash and one for scary air
You only need one pipe. It’s going to be a 2” probably for radon but a 1.5 would also work and the fan wouldn’t need to work as hard to get the lift.
Obvious, this pipe could be shared with the sump egress
This is why the radon gas remediation business is seen as a scam. I don’t think it is, but this kind shit isn’t helping.
The basement doesn't have to be airtight to push radon out and I think the idea of venting it above the roof is to give it the greatest chance to disperse into the air rather than immediately reabsorb into the ground
Usually heavier-than air stuff is outlet below grade, and lighter above the roofline.
Also, radon turns into polonium dust in a few days, you don’t want to shower your dwelling with that.
> sump & radon through same outlet
At least on the horizontal run out of the house.
You would put the ¾" pipe inside the 2"
It’s not seen often because 99.99% of radon mitigation is done after the fact and installers never want to touch anything they don’t have to.
In fact, in some cases you can just blow it out to the sewer, it’s already below grade, and generally already going to be “radon central” down there.
>So the reason they have a sump pump in the first place is because there is no way to make the basement waterproof.
not entirely.. the sump is to prevent groundwater from accumulating under the foundation primarily. the sump pit is left open so it can also function to evacuate water that leaks from inside the house. This just prevents one function of the sump from working.
>You only need one pipe.
are you suggesting you can route an air pump and a water pump through the same outlet pipe? This is new procedure to me...
leave a window open or a fan exhausting air outside problem solved
radon is heavier than air
>puts exhaust fan on second floor
>exhaust light air
>exhaust fan pulls radon out of the ground
>radon is heavy and accumulates
genius
tear it down so you can put a vapor barrier and radon pipe under the foundation
I just called a company that specializes in it and had them install a system for like 700 bucks.
I did radon mitigation for 6 months and still am not sure if it's a real thing or not tbh. Easier just to call a company to do it though, all houses in the area here have to be inspected for it before they are sold. I think you should b***h out your housing inspector.
yea it definitely is.. I bought my own meter and monitored it before and after mitigation and it made huge improvements. Outdoor concentrations in the areas with even the highest naturally occurring radon generally don't go above .5 pci/l. Houses used to not have central air so the air that came out of the ground stayed in the basement which was not a living space. Now the homes are airtight and the basement is part of the hvac envelope and basement air is recirculated. In addition, various devices and mechanical systems in the house exhaust air(h20 heater, furnace, bathroom vents, dryer, etc) and this creates a vacuum in the house which pulls more radon from the ground. Levels in my house were over 15pci/l and we mitigated and now they never go above .5pci/l.
yea strange for you to have it in your house when you have a crawl space. You probably have appliances pulling air from the crawl space into the living space. Range hoods, furnace, water heater, fart fan, etc
I've been trying to determine if I need to do any mitigation
I seen a guy on YouTube talk about radon while he was installing a crawlspace ground cap. He put sand and gravel down and then sprayed closed cell foam over all of it and then he might've added something else on top of that. I found that video searching for how to re-level and repair concrete patios using spray foam. It was kind of a side note about radon, but it might be pertinent to your interests. I would look into sealing the ground underneath your house with closed cell foam.
>shitton of radon
Black person you have 0.2 microcuries of radon in your body at any time just from naturally occurring potassium and carbon radiation. This is nothing. That value is a near million times smaller than your natural internal radiation.
Also: bring out a geiger counter. Curies per liter means next to nothing and your counter will show you this.