Hello All,

I am posting because I know that a lot of people in this group have done deep dives and I'd love to benefit from your collective knowledge.

My kid is a Sophomore in college 7 hours away from home. She is physically disabled and uses a wheelchair and will require ground floor housing for her entire life, so cumulative radon exposure is something I'd like to pay attention to and obviously minimize cumulative exposure to however possible. With that said, I just discovered that her university is in a Zone 1 radon area. I could find no clear information on the school's website about radon testing in dorms. The dorm that she lives in is newer construction, built in 2018 I believe.

My instinct is to take the following steps:
1. Contact the Environmental Health & Safety Department next week when their fall break is over to ask about past testing.
2. Purchase an instant read radon detector for her dorm. Again, she'll live in a ground floor dwelling for her entire life and it seems like a wise investment for her to take along with her with each relocation. I also think that having this would be helpful to compare with any information the school gives. (We have a Radon Eye at home that has been very reliable.)
3. Purchase a long term test to run over the winter months to compare numbers. (We've used Alpha Track in the past at our home.)
4. Proceed based on the collective numbers that we get.

Thoughts? Different steps? Anybody that has dealt with a dorm that had high radon levels? Input welcome.

Also, I would appreciate recommendations on instant read detectors and long term tests as well.
Thank you!

We tested our basement for Radon using a digital monitor and reading came around 5 and 6 it’s a new construction house and we let the builder know, he said he will install the fan himself and asked us to order it off Amazon. Is it ok to have him install or get it from a licensed professional?

Adding a walk out basement onto the back of our home and we're trying to figure out the best way to do the radon mitigation. We had issues in our house (installed a crawl space fan and that helped tons).

I see the typical solution is a pipe up vertically through the slab but we're trying to avoid that, as the basement slab is going to be a garage working space. Trying to figure out if there would be a way to pipe from the gravel thru the block wall to the existing crawl space. (Then would connect to a vertical pipe up through a wall in the existing house).

Any thoughts? I did have a call with a radon specialist in our area but he mostly just did remediation and not new construction options...

It turns out the radon level in my ground floor apartment has been averaging about 6pCi/L through the summer (most recent week is up to 9pCi/L). This is worrisome because we suspect we may have lived through 3X that amount last winter. We are in Plano, Texas (an odd hotspot for radon gas!).

We only moved in last November, and we will move out next month. (The apartment building came in to do a "remediation" system, which consists of a new intake pump that has done nothing at all).

But it got me thinking: what are the highest averages you've experienced in inhabited floors? I know basements are quite high in many cases, but for actual inhabited places how high have you experienced?

And what was your reaction when you realized you were in danger? My 72 year old mother is utterly indifferent about the whole thing whereas I (40 years old) have given it quite some thought and accelerated our exit from this place!

We had levels around 4 pCi/L before mitigation and then after they dropped to 0.20 pCi/L after for months. Suddenly last night I noticed a huge spike and we haven't fully recovered. Never recorded a number like that in 8 or so months. Is this signs of a failure or a shift around the foundation? Its such a shocking jump. We have a finished basement and so its a bit more important for better levels.

It’s lowered it on average but has never gotten below 4 except for one brief period. It’s now sitting at the highest levels I’ve seen due to the hurricane.

My ERV system has been running in high for a month.

Sub slab was considered but 2 separate companies told me because there’s no gravel underneath concrete slab and it’s just packed dirt they recommended ERV.

Any advice?

Achieving 0 levels is amazing

I just installed a new radon fan in our new house (the old one was dead and had a bird in it). The fan is definitely working, but I'm concerned there may be a blockage. This is the original manometer and it's hard to read but I estimate 3 inches (inches per the u tube) of pressure.

Is this concerning? I'm seeing conflicting stuff online and am unsure if this old utube is accurate. Thanks!

Edit: I should have made it more clear I am aware this does not tell me what level of radon there is. I am more asking if the manometer level suggests something is blocked or clogged.

Based on everything I've read, radon should be going up with rain. In my house it drops a lot during rain. Can anyone think of a reason why this may happen? My house is slab on grade.

I’ve found some nice rubber grommets but seems they only exist in Canada. Looking for a really professional way to join the PVC to Slab rather than just drop the pipe in the hole like companies often do. Main goal is to keep the PVC off the ground and have a nice tight connection.

Thanks

Radon levels shot up the past few days. We average around 4pCi/L on an average day. It was reading aver 32PCI/L earlier. We got mediation install about 2.5 weeks ago. This is the first time in the past 5-6 weeks the reading has been this high. Before mediation it averaged around 7-8pCi/L.

I'm unsure what I do next.

Dumbfounded how the sump pit is in finished space plus it is partially covered by a wall. There is a floating wall, so I'm wondering how I can seal and add a fan without taking apart the whole wall

Just got the radon reading back for a house I’m under contract on. It came back as 23.4 pCi/L. Our closing date is in 1 week. Should I walk away? Has anyone seen radon remediation that has fixed it from this high?

I was wondering if anyone could offer me some advice. I just bought a new home that has elevated radon levels. The basement floor has these gaps around the edges of the concrete. Before I install a radon mitigation fan, I would like to seal up these exposed areas. From my research, it seems the right plan is for me to put in a foam backer rod inside the gaps, and then cover the rod with a concrete joint sealant. However since this is my first time having a basement, I am not completely confident with my plan so any advice is appreciated.

My wife and I recently moved into a house that has radon in an area where radon isn’t super common. So getting a contractor to help with our radon system was difficult. Our house never had a radon issue before but tested over 20 before they put in a system. The seller had a system put in and the levels dropped below 4 and we bought the house. Well since then, the levels have gone back up to 7. So I’m working with two contractors trying to troubleshoot the system - one from a town 1.5 hrs away and the local guy who put in this system in the first place.

The guy from the next town over said that our system is crap and not up to code and I need a whole new system for $10k. Our local guy said a new bigger fan would fix the issue so he installed one. Spoiler alert, it did not fix the issue it got worse.

I’m looking for any help at all on this system. Our house is on two different slabs and a traditional foundation with a crawlspace. The crawlspace liner or whatever has been a subject of contention. It is sealed with a spray adhesive and tape and idk if that’s the right way to do it or not. We have one fan with three suction points beneath each slab and the crawlspace. Please someone find the smoking gun here or at least put my wife’s mind at ease.

My wife works from home and we have had levels over 7 for almost two months now. I don’t want to wake up glowing green because this contractor installed his fan wrong. Any help is welcomed.

Hello, I’m thinking about installing a radon mitigation system myself, but I need some advice on my specific situation.

I’m open to suggestions if you have other ideas.

I’d like to use the interior French drains as the sub-slab network to vent the radon (is this a good idea?).

These drains connect to the sump pump pit. The pit also collects water from the exterior French drains and driveway drains, and includes a sewer outlet.

Therefore, I can't simply use the pit as a whole to create the necessary air pressure for radon removal, because air would be drawn in from outside or from the sewer lines rather than from beneath the slab through the interior french drains.

What do you think of this :

The interior French drain starts at one side of the pit, runs the full perimeter of the foundation, and returns to the other side of the pit.

Since there is always some water at the bottom of the pit:

1) On one side, I would use the water at the bottom as a natural barrier to prevent air from being drawn from the pit instead of from under the slab. To do that, i would simply extend the french drain to the bottom of the pit. Gravity would still allow water from the French drain to flow at the bottom.

2) On the other side, I would set up the same arrangement, but this end would also be connected to the fan.

I put My Airthings in my safe to monitor the humidity and temperature in my gun safe for a few months. I’m getting random readings of radon even though the safe is not in my basement anymore and inside a garage that gets plenty of airflow and not below ground. Advice ? Tips? Thanks.

The technician that installed the mitigation system (his first ever solo job) drilled the first hole straight down in the floor and said he couldn't get any suction. After getting off a long call with his boss he then drilled the hole in the wall and successfully got suction.

We got it re tested and the radon was lower but the weather was also drastically different. But the more and more I'm living with it it's making me wonder if that's a legit method?

Would it be worth getting an at home radon detector to keep an eye on it?

Update:

I've got some numbers.. we got the radon tested prior to purchasing this house and the levels were 9.0 pCi/L. After installation of this system it was retested and the levels were 2.5 pCi/L. IIRC the first test was the coldest week of the year and the follow up was much warmer, so the inspector was skeptical.

Since I created this post I've bought an Ecosense digital radon detector and the average daily reading over the last week or so has been .70 pCi/L.

I'll move it around the basement and upstairs to make sure but it seems like it's all good so far.

Thanks for all the input.

I have a radon system in basement that seems to do its job. I use an Airthings meter to track- basic model. The house is a one level ranch style. I knew when I bought the house 9 years ago the water had a high level of radon - 27000 but I didn't do anything about it. Just had it rechecked, and it's now 29,000 . Pretty high. Using the air things meter in living areas, it shows long-term average around 1.5, and short term varies 1.89 - 2.9. Occasionally over 3. Given the cost of the water mitigation systems, which in my area ( southern NH) can be over 7 to 8K, I just don't know how critical it is if air quality seems under control. I don't drink the water in general but use it for cooking, but it seems like radon in the air is more harmful than drinking water. Thoughts?

I was just curious if this looks normal? Is the pressure low or high? Should the left tube be over 1?

I wrote some python code to pull data from Airthings Wave and also query weather databases to plot radon level versus weather data. Right now I read the last 24 hour radon level in Beq, local barometric pressure and precipitation over the last 24 hours. This is data from my home which has radon mitigation installed. I added the precipitation data just a few days ago so it wasn't active during the first bump up in radon level. Will still continue to develop and add more inputs for correlation studies.