Radon in basement/open windows

[MichaelBikel]

Does leaving your basement windows open year round decrease the level of radon in the space? I have two windows that I leave open, but don't know the sq footage of the basement. My workspace is 14x20' I believe and the windows probably open about 1' x 9"

 

[Rossco]

It's all about pressure. If the pressure below the slab is higher than above. The air is gonna force its way in.

Now opening a basement window when it's -20C is kinda silly. I pull air in over my wood stove to heat this equalizing air.

 

[Showkey]

If your conditioning the air ( heat, AC,humidity) in the basement then open windows makes no sense.

If you do have a radon problem........a radon abatement system can be installed for $1-$1.5k. DIY Version might cost $400 all in.

 

[nh_yota]

Radon is such a scam.

 

[MichaelBikel]

I think I'll have the levels checked, if you have the levels checked do you have to report it in the listing when selling your house? I don't know the laws with this...also no ac in the basement.

 

[APEowner]

If you're living in the house, you're in an area where radon issues are common and you don't like the idea of you or your loved ones having cancer then you should have it checked. If the levels are OK then great and if they're high then you should take abatement measures regardless of whether or not you're planning on selling the house.

If you're in an area where radon issues are common then your house is as valuable if not As far as opening a window is concerned that can be an effective abatement strategy but as others have mentioned that's not a great idea in a climate controlled space.

 

[Locker537]

Instead of a detection kit you ship out or hiring a professional, this device off Amazon is pretty good:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000CEAY64/?tag=atomicindus08-20

As stated by others, you can have a mitigation system installed for ~$1,000.

 

[jgbnm]

I think I'll have the levels checked, if you have the levels checked do you have to report it in the listing when selling your house? I don't know the laws with this...also no ac in the basement.

Yup. You would have to report the numbers. Low numbers, you'd want to report and high numbers could be considered a material defect requiring disclosure.

Keep in mind that test results with the little cheap 2-3 day kits can be highly variable. Results can vary seasonally and with different weather conditions (snow, rain, high winds, etc.). Don't panic if a single test gives you a number higher than 4 pCi/L and don't trust a lower number from a single test. A result of 10 could be a 3 the following week.

The only accurate way to know your level is to do a long term test of many months under normal living conditions. As an alternative, you could do the cheap tests every month or two for a year.

In my reasonably informed opinion, there isn't a good way to measure the actual cancer risk at low radon levels, so the guidelines are a bit of a guess.

To mitigate, you can depressurize under the slab but can also just increase air exchange between the house and outdoors.

If the radon testing company does mitigation, they tend to want to do the tests under the worst case scenario (worst location with a sealed up house).

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[piker28]

I think I'll have the levels checked, if you have the levels checked do you have to report it in the listing when selling your house? I don't know the laws with this...also no ac in the basement.

I have recently sold my old home and bought a new one so I will chime in. Simply put the home inspector will usually just use one of those mail in kits and report to the owner their findings.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

Radon is such a scam.

Radon itself isn't so much a scam, but it's definitely overhyped. Some of the abatement systems are pretty much a joke. I can't count the number of "Radon exhaust fans" I've seen in steam tunnels that stopped working within a year of being installed. Never heard of anyone in those bulidings getting lung cancer, either...

Tommy

 

[wssix99]

Does leaving your basement windows open year round decrease the level of radon in the space?

Yes, it decreases the concentration: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...c0cf214269f1dd2e3.pdf?origin=publication_list

But, I'm not sure why you would do that year-round.

 

[MichaelBikel]

Okay, all good information here. I have seen those digital monitors and I heard that they often require calibration blah blah blah. I think the last test we had was at least a month where everything was sealed up and it either came back high/mid range or in between.

2/3 of the basement is storage/water heater/furnace/oil tank blah blah, the other 1/3 is my shop which has a plastic partition (that isn't sealed) and two windows that I always leave open (not usually in winter) in hopes that it would disperse the radon concentration. The basement is not climate controlled at all and I never have moisture or heat issues or anything of that nature. I guess at some point I will look into a mitigation system, hopefully one I can install myself.

 

[AMCguy]

I owned a house once that had a powdery and always damp concrete floor in the crawl space. When I came home at the end of the day, the house always smelled like damp basement.

I installed a bathroom fan in one of the vents to pull air out. It cost me less than $20. That solved the problem completely. I left it running 24/7.

My point is, If that worked as well as it did, why wouldn't it work for removing radon?

 

[Todd.Brock]

Our home inspector checked for radon. The level was high. The seller paid for a radon mitigation set up. It is a 4" pvc pipe connected to sump crock that exits the building and goes up the wall 2ft higher than the roof. The fan is something like 1/6th or 1/3rd HP, runs year round , had a simple manometer attached to the tube to measure pressure. It was about 800 bucks and they retest for radon. Some set ups use a down spout to blend in. They really do pull suction on the Slab, too. The installer had caulked the floor at the wall and missed a spot. You could hear this big air "leak". Sealed with caulk and problem solved.
As for the basement windows. We were told to leave the windows closed when the people buying our house were testing for radon.

It seems like a relatively simple thing to install. If you don't have a sump crock , they will core drill a 4" hole in your slab.

 

[wssix99]

Radon itself isn't so much a scam, but it's definitely overhyped. Some of the abatement systems are pretty much a joke.

I agree. We are all exposed to radon walking around outside in public. It's everywhere. The problem is with modern, sealed houses, and the gas getting more concentrated inside the house than outside.

^ There's no problem with letting the gas inside the house, because it's everywhere in the atmosphere, constantly leaching out from the earth. (So, intercepting it from the foundation isn't critical - it's just a good method to use for a modern highly air-sealed house.) So for an old house, the foundation fan may be overkill. A simple exhaust fan or HRV would also achieve the same end result to the atmosphere inside the building.

 

[redmondjp]

I agree. We are all exposed to radon walking around outside in public. It's everywhere. The problem is with modern, sealed houses, and the gas getting more concentrated inside the house than outside.

^ There's no problem with letting the gas inside the house, because it's everywhere in the atmosphere, constantly leaching out from the earth. (So, intercepting it from the foundation isn't critical - it's just a good method to use for a modern highly air-sealed house.) So for an old house, the foundation fan may be overkill. A simple exhaust fan or HRV would also achieve the same end result to the atmosphere inside the building.

It's a matter of concentration and exposure time. Alpha radiation is blocked by the skin, but when it gets inside your body, it does significant cellular damage.

I used to work on a nuclear site. One day we visited some reactor buildings built in the 1950s that had been mothballed for 20+ years. On the way out, I set the radiation detector off. Was it from contamination that I picked up while inside? No. It was from naturally-occurring radon gas that had built up in the room, and was stuck on my clothes due to a static charge. I had to sit there for awhile in order for the radiation level on my clothes to decay before I could leave!

 

[dragonballz]

If leaving a window open for ventilation isnt a good idea (other than weather), then why is a radon fan a good idea? Wont it still **** out heat / AC?

 

[engineer2]

The actionable level for radon abatement is 4 picocuries per liter. We tested right a 4, so I put a system in. As said, they will inspect your house for it when you sell.

Sub-slab pit in basement floor plus line to sump pump, up 3 stories, through the attic, and out the roof. Followed the plumbing chase, so it is mostly hidden.
If you have a contractor do it, they will put the piping outside the house, which is unsightly.

It was about $500 DIY total including piping, fan, radon detector with digital display.
The Fantech fan is in the attic and you can barely hear it. Had to replace a bearing in the fan after about 6 years due to crappy waterproofing by Fantech. (The fan is saturated with condensation much of the year.) They say they are not rebuildable, but that is BS.

The fan runs off of a 3-speed ceiling fan control in the basement near the radon readout.
I just leave it at medium and gets it down to around 1.8 to 2 pC/L. I found a used Magnehelic at work to monitor performance. I only get about a 1" H2O delta P.

Some think that if you have a radon abatement system, you have a radon problem. Quite the contrary. Radon affects much of the USA and having a system means the problem is fixed.

 

[Locker537]

If leaving a window open for ventilation isnt a good idea (other than weather), then why is a radon fan a good idea? Wont it still **** out heat / AC?

No, not for a proper mitigation system.

The system consists of cutting a hole in the slab foundation, inserting a PVC pipe, sealing the gap around the pipe, and running the pipe outside of the house. Somewhere near the top of the pipe is an exhaust fan.

This creates a low pressure path for the radon to flow through.

 

[gipraw]

Is the basement finished? If it isn't, then painting the floor, and walls if they are block, with a good sealing paint will greatly reduce the issue.

 

[CJ7VFR]

Does your basement have a French drain all around the perimeter where the floor meets the walls because you have water infiltrating issues?

If so, then you would have to have that sealed up as well if you have a radon system put in, which pretty much negates the use of the drain in the first place.

As others have said, when a radon system is installed, they seal up every single little crack and crevice in the basement. They seal up cracks in the walls. They seal up cracks in the floor. They try to seal up around your windows (if you have them in the basement). They will even put some type of cap over your sump and seal that to the floor if you have a sump. And they usually try to put the 4 inch PVC piping thru that cap in the sump for radon system.

What I find funny is that when they put the little hockey puck sized tester thing in your basement, they tell you to keep all your doors and windows shut for at least 3 days during the test. They even tell you not to go into your basement via your basement door in the house. They want everything sealed up as tight as it can be for three days.

Think about that for a second. Why would they want that? Because if you open any door or window to the basement you let fresh air in and the radon out. That will skew the test and give it a lower reading than they want to see. They want to see the highest reading they can get. But if you think about it, keeping your windows and all your doors shut tight is not what anybody ever really does for days on end. So keeping the doors and windows shut up tight is not what a real world, every day amount of radon in your basement would be based on.

Every time you go down into your basement, or open a basement window, or go out of your basement via a Bilco style door or equivalent, you let fresh air in and the radon out. You may not let all of it out, but you let out enough that if you set up one of the hockey puck testing things in your basement, and then just came and went in and out of the basement like you normally do, the radon reading will be low, and you would not need to waste upwards of $1200 or more on a system you don't really need.

Now, if on the other hand they put a testing thing your basement, and they told you to use your basement as you normally would, and to come and go as you normally would, and then they came back and said your readings were high, then I might agree with a system needing to be installed.

But under normal use of your doors and windows in your basement, a high reading is very unlikely to ever happen unless the radon where you live is in a very high concentration.

Jim

 

[dragonballz]

No, not for a proper mitigation system.

The system consists of cutting a hole in the slab foundation, inserting a PVC pipe, sealing the gap around the pipe, and running the pipe outside of the house. Somewhere near the top of the pipe is an exhaust fan.

This creates a low pressure path for the radon to flow through.

How will this effect a very slightly damp basement? Damp, as in a dehumidifier is needed constantly. It shouldnt affect anything because the gap is sealed, right?

 

[CJ7VFR]

How will this effect a very slightly damp basement? Damp, as in a dehumidifier is needed constantly. It shouldnt affect anything because the gap is sealed, right?

It shouldn't.

I lived in a townhouse at one time, and it had a radon system in it. I used a dehumidifier in the basement because all of my woodworking tools were in there (table saw, band saw, router table) and I ran the dehumidifier all the time to keep the tools from getting flash rust on them.

There is a little "U" shaped tube on the side of the radon system that is filled with red fluid that shows you if the system is working properly. If the red fluid is higher on one side of the "U" than the other, the system is supposed to be working properly.

With my dehumidifier running all the time, it never affected the radon system as far as I could see, and the red fluid was always higher on one side of the "U" than the other while the radon system was running.

Jim

 

[Locker537]

How will this effect a very slightly damp basement? Damp, as in a dehumidifier is needed constantly. It shouldnt affect anything because the gap is sealed, right?

I can't see how it would make it worse.

 

[Wood'nMetal]

Funny how we've been living in houses for hundreds of years and didn't know about radon. Guess ignorance is bliss?

Also funny is the fact that I don't think I've ever heard of anybody dying from radon.

Sounds like a lot of hoopla and a way to make a fast buck.

 

[redmondjp]

Funny how we've been living in houses for hundreds of years and didn't know about radon. Guess ignorance is bliss?

Also funny is the fact that I don't think I've ever heard of anybody dying from radon.

Sounds like a lot of hoopla and a way to make a fast buck.

You don't die from radon. You eventually die from the lung cancer that breathing it over a long period of time causes.

And houses have been notoriously drafty up until the late 20th century when energy conservation became all of the rage. When you seal up a house so tight that you have to have engineered air leaks in the bedroom window casements, and a ventilation fan on a timer a few hours a day in order to ensure that enough fresh air gets into the house, you have to be much more concerned about things like radon that can build up in these tightly-sealed spaces. The house ventilation fan causes a slight negative pressure inside the house, and this can draw in radon-laden air from the basement or crawl space through pipe penetrations and the like.

And it's only in certain parts of the country that you even have to be worried about radon, from naturally-occurring radioactive deposits in the earth's crust.

 

[wssix99]

Funny how we've been living in houses for hundreds of years and didn't know about radon. Guess ignorance is bliss?

Also funny is the fact that I don't think I've ever heard of anybody dying from radon.

Sounds like a lot of hoopla and a way to make a fast buck.

It's a real problem only in certain areas:

In Oregon, you don't have to worry about natural radon so much. Your radiation worries are mostly man-made and highly concentrated/localized.

 

[LS6 Tommy]

You don't die from radon. You eventually die from the lung cancer that breathing it over a long period of time causes.

And houses have been notoriously drafty up until the late 20th century when energy conservation became all of the rage. When you seal up a house so tight that you have to have engineered air leaks in the bedroom window casements, and a ventilation fan on a timer a few hours a day in order to ensure that enough fresh air gets into the house, you have to be much more concerned about things like radon that can build up in these tightly-sealed spaces. The house ventilation fan causes a slight negative pressure inside the house, and this can draw in radon-laden air from the basement or crawl space through pipe penetrations and the like.

And it's only in certain parts of the country that you even have to be worried about radon, from naturally-occurring radioactive deposits in the earth's crust.

Dead on...

Tommy

 

[SH7mi]

Radon is such a scam.

I agree whole heartedly! I have never seen a 'mail in' Radon detector return with a negative result.
I can't speak for others on this site but I personally have never known or heard of a person getting sick or dying from 'Radon'.
Thousands of people die from cancer every day, how any certain person gets the cancer can SOMETIMES be determined. It has NEVER been proven from 'Radon exposure'.
I finished a basement for a customer, he had a Radon evac system installed some years earlier. This system was;
1) Seal with spray foam the 1" gap from basement slab to concrete wall
2) Seal the flu clean out door shut to both interior fireplaces...WHAT?!?!?!?
3) Core drill two 4" holes in basement floor @ 16' apart
4) Run 4" PVC vertically to underside of first floor joists with a 90* elbow, running to an automatic exhaust fan set to 12 hour intervals. (fan would exhaust for 10-15 minutes every 12 hours)
WHAT A SCAM !!!

 

[Showkey]

That HOT spot in the center of Wisconsin.....that's where I live. Granite is every where, most homes is the rock areas have mitigation. The fan runs 24/7 and if listen carefully you can detect the negative pressure (sucking sound( air flow) through several locations, like the water well wiring conduit.

Sold my home in Northern IL a few years back with clay soils and it failed the radon test because of the new standards. Gave the new owner $1000 at closing, doubt they installed a system ???

 

[Wood'nMetal]

It's a real problem only in certain areas:

In Oregon, you don't have to worry about natural radon so much. Your radiation worries are mostly man-made and highly concentrated/localized.

Hmm, I gave your response serious thought until I saw who published the map! Have to take anything the EPA says with a grain of iodized salt.

 

[Kaizen]

Really liking my dirt basement and leaky rubble foundation right about now


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[wssix99]

Radon is such a scam.

Actually, didn't I hear that the Chinese made it all up to trash the economy???

Hmm, I gave your response serious thought until I saw who published the map! Have to take anything the EPA says with a grain of iodized salt.

If it makes you feel better, it was made with US Geological Survey data.

 

[MichaelBikel]

Is the basement finished? If it isn't, then painting the floor, and walls if they are block, with a good sealing paint will greatly reduce the issue.

i wish it was finished, the walls and floor were actually painted by the prior owner but that was LONG ago

 

[MichaelBikel]

It's a real problem only in certain areas:

In Oregon, you don't have to worry about natural radon so much. Your radiation worries are mostly man-made and highly concentrated/localized.

Yeah I've looked at maps like these, I'm in a zone one area dang it

 

[grandall4]

Having sold a house where the seller wanted radon mitigation, and doing far too much research on the topic, I leave you with this

getting to radon as the cause of lung cancer is done by process of elimination.

Did you smoke, No. We're you a plumber, No. Fireman, No. Eliminate all possible sources until Radon is the last one on the list, and there you have... radon caused your cancer.

IIRC, the Feds stopped funding the radon program a decade or 2 ago. The realtors continue to sell the dangers, not anyone else.

 

[D45]

I was told it also greatly depends on what material is under the foundation

Houses with sand under the concrete tend to have more issues with radon that houses that have gravel underneath

My house was built in the late 1970s, using sand under the basement concrete

Radon levels were high and would not pass inspection, so the loan company said no way. The owner installed a $1000 mitigation system, in to the sump pump basin with the sealed lid

Cut the readings by 85%

 

[SH7mi]

If you eat fast food once or twice a week you have a far greater chance of dying from that than 'Radon'. Do you live under power lines, do you eat TV dinners, do you drink alcohol, do you drink soda, do you eat margarine, do you eat candy... the list is extensive of things which have been scientifically linked to major health issues than 'Radon exposure' .

 

[stikman56]

I owned a house once that had a powdery and always damp concrete floor in the crawl space. When I came home at the end of the day, the house always smelled like damp basement.

I installed a bathroom fan in one of the vents to pull air out. It cost me less than $20. That solved the problem completely. I left it running 24/7.

My point is, If that worked as well as it did, why wouldn't it work for removing radon?

I'm told the only way to treat radon is to vent it/remove it. Our new home has tubes venting from the crawl space out the foundation vents for this venting. I would think that a fan running all the time would work well.

 

[wssix99]

If you eat fast food once or twice a week you have a far greater chance of dying from that than 'Radon'. Do you live under power lines, do you eat TV dinners, do you drink alcohol, do you drink soda, do you eat margarine, do you eat candy... the list is extensive of things which have been scientifically linked to major health issues than 'Radon exposure' .

This is completely true... if you don't have high concentrations of radon in your basement. If you do, sadly - it's not true. Fortunately, we have science, radio tests, and some good information in this thread.

The effects of breathing in high amounts/concentrations of radioactive particles are indisputable. Following logic that would indicate high concentrations of radon gas are not dangerous is akin to following logic that indicates the earth is flat. (Well, it looks flat from where I stand!)