Radon?

[rbattelle]

What is your opinion on Radon? I'm trying to buy a house and the Radon inspection found a level of 4. 8 pCi/L (EPA says anything above 4. 0 should be mitigated).



It will cost $725 to mitigate it (which should cut it down to 2. 0 or less). My inclination is to ask the seller to foot the bill.



I'm interested in some advice from the all-knowing TDR membership...

 

[MGordon]

I would definitely say that the cost of mitigation is the sellers responsibility. However if it becomes a deal killer and you really want the house you may have to negotiate the issue.



I kind of fall in the camp that radon is probably not as big a deal as it's been made out to be. That being said, If the house is tightly insulated with minimal air exchange, I would mitigate it, particularly if the area is occupied full time and/or a sleeping area. $725. 00 is kind of cheap for peace of mind.

 

[JLEONARD]

I would definitely say that the cost of mitigation is the sellers responsibility.

Yea, but that amount of $$ is a **** hole in the snow for a house... ...

Consider that and make your deal

Jay

 

[JPope]

Something to consider is that maybe all of the houses in the area have a radon issue, as radon is associated with the ground type. So maybe the cost of mitigation is in every deal, unless the owner have already had the mitigation done. If so bet they have it listed in the report, and have already adjusted the price to compensate. either way a negoiating point, and if the houses are in demand, and you really want this one maybe you have an advantage dependant upon how you negoiate, take the deal, or walk away.

Have they told you how they will mitigate and what work is required, and what guarantees (time) they are offering on the mitigation, and if fans are involved (costs, maintenance)

 

[QRTRHRS]

I am near a so called radon belt. It's pretty much standard to have a radon clause in the contract. Usually, it is written that the seller pays the cost to mitigate. The company doing the mitigation should back up their work. I can dig out my contract from my present house tomorrow and see how it was written. Once mitigated, after a set time, you retest to see if the level has dropped. It is common practice to automatically put 4" sewer pipe under the slab just in case mitigation is required later. One house can have high levels and the next door none at all. Systems usually run a four inch fan assisted vent pipe up beyond the roof. They typically use a pancake fan such as one made by Fantech. The fans use minimal power and are quiet. It is air going through the pipe that can be the source of background noise. My present house was built with a channel around the basement slab in case of moisture. The basement has never flooded so the contractor secured plastic angle over the channel with a fitting to transit to the 4" pipe.



The elderly woman we bought our house from had to mitigate it went on to build a new house for her and her daughter. She then had to mitigate the well water for her new house which had high radon counts. Being somewhat north of the "belt", when we bought this house, it was unusual for radon to be part of a contract. When the house tested high, it raised some eyebrows.



A house can test low but then test high later on with time. As I recall, the health risk is pretty well documented but not totally proven due to so many variables. I would not hesitate to buy a house with mitigation nor purchase one that needed it if it could realistically be done. I would not ignore the problem.

 

[rbattelle]

Thanks for all the good advice!

 

[Fireman Dave]

We bought our house 2 years ago. It was built in '78. I was very uneducated about radon at the time - and I still don't know a whole lot. When we made arrangements for the inspection, the inspector asked if we wanted a radon test. This was where I thought - I've heard that word before, but I don't know what it is. After learning a little about radon, we had the test done as part of the inspection just to see. It came back high - I think similar to your level, rbattelle. Basically - not that high, but over the mark where you should get it taken care of. Well, we hadn't written radon into the contingencies, so we would have had to start all over with the seller if we would have wanted him to foot the bill. We didn't want to go through that - we really wanted the house, and the guy had been tight on his price. So I doubt he would have agreed to pay for mitigation without upping the agreed upon price. Also, this was the only blemish from the inspection.



So it's 2 years later and we haven't done anything with it yet. I know we should, and we most likely will before much longer. But it's hard to want to spend the money on it (maybe $2k) when it seems to be a debatable topic as far as what the affects are. The previous owner lived in the house for 23 years and he's in his 80s. Also, I figure I get a much more lethal shot of toxic air every time I'm in the firehouse when we fire up the trucks. I bet the air in there at any given time is much worse than my basement's air. But, we'll still probably get it mitigated. We have our computer and a second TV in a family room we made in the basement (it's only 1/2 under ground), so we do spend some time down there.

 

[rbattelle]

I read a statistic that a level of 4 pCi/L is equivalent to working in a Uranium mine for 5 years.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Fireman Dave,



Sounds like you have a bilevel? I had a bilevel that was built pretty much on grade with radon. It had already been mitigated when I purchased it and tests were well within limits. It appeared that whoever did the work drilled a hole into the slab and cemented schedule 40 PVC into it and up through to the attic where the fan was and out through the roof. Apparently, the air will draw through the gravel beneath the slab if so constructed. Fantech fans run maybe 80-100 bucks I think. There is also a vacuum indicator mounted on the pipe to show the system is working. Pretty simple, it looks like a graduated "U" shaped tube with a red fluid in it. If your handy, you could do the work for maybe 200 or so?

 

[Fireman Dave]

QRTRHRS,



Yes, it's a bilevel. Thanks for the tip - I'll look into that. $200. sounds a LOT better than $2,000.

 

[rbattelle]

If we were already in the house when we discovered the Radon, I'd probably do the work myself. It doesn't seem very difficult, especially if you happen to already have a sump pump setup.

 

[lmills]

You might want to check your local code requiremnts. Sometimes a building inspector can give you some advice to help you do the install. After all the are the ones that check them for a living. I just finished an addition in a county where they require that all new living strutures have radon venting capabilites. It was over an existing slab so I had to jackhammer through to install the vent. The inspector informed me that as long as the pipe has a constant uphill slope that you are not required to install a fan to pull a vacuum. In other words I could install 22-1/2* and 45* bends, but could not install 90* bends to get around things. Just something to ponder

 

[datablitz]

someone told me once that if you had radon in your house, you would have to live in the basement for 30 years, and never come out, and if you did that you have a 1% chance of getting cancer... . heh

 

[Sled Puller]

Fireman Dave, you may want to look into it. I heard it affects womens hormones, makes em frigid.

 

[Neal Cassady]

Lots of good info here:



http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/radon/radonhome.html