• Dr. Burkhart Receives award in Recognition of his extensive work in Radon Science
    To a man who never stops learning and who unselfishly continues to share his knowledge with all: Congrats!
  • I have 2 questions.
    George, you have been responsible for a ton of great information flying around from all over North America. I think we all agree you are on the right track, but I just wanted to point out one possible consideration of using the sump as your extraction point. They say the average life of a sump pump is 5 to 7 years. Depending on the circumstances the sump crock should be cleaned regularly to ensure continued operation. Every time you open that puppy up, you've got to ensure you are sealing it up completely, again.
    I'm a big fan of Robert's idea of putting a "T" in the drain line next to the sump crock and running your 4" radon vent up to the rim joist and out to the garage. (That radon pipe is only going to be 10 or 12 inches away from where it would rise up from the sump cover.) With a properly sized fan, mounted in the garage, and 4" pipe I would think you would easily get 15 to 20 years of life out of the radon fan. By doing that you are not disrupting the radon mitigation system whenever you want/need to service or change the sump pump. Just another thought!
  • I have 2 questions.
    George,
    You’ve received good advise in the previous comments. If you want to read or study a copy of the standard go to https://standards.aarst.org/ . There you will find the ANSI/AARST standards. Go down to the CCAH standard and you can view the details of the standard. There are great similarities to Appendix F with some best practices included. You can view the entire standard at no cost. Of you would like to purchase it so that you have a “hard” only, you can do so.
    Since there is no safe level of ionizing radiation, your interest in properly installing a system is prudent.
    - David
  • How would you improve this Rubble Stone Wall mitigation?
    My client had already had the walls of his crawlspace foamed so we invited his insulator in to discuss it with him. This was the first time he had done it for radon, but had lots of experience foaming walls of old crawl spaces and attics in new home construction.

    Check with your builders association and see who does foam insulation. If they are using the right kind it is likely that about 2" of foam will create a vapor barrier. My client went with 3" and in some areas that put in more to even out deteriorated areas.

    Tom, shoot me an e-mail and I'll send you a couple of before and after photos.
  • How would you improve this Rubble Stone Wall mitigation?
    I'm in agreement with Bruce. I've had good success in eliminating reason intrusion through rubble walls with foam. I was surprised at the reasonable cost and very pleased with the radon reduction.

    An associate of mine, in a similar situation installed a 6mil soil gas barrier over the rubble walls. He sealed it top and bottom with 2part foam after installing a perforated 2" PVC pipe along the bast of the walls (similar effect of your baseboard channel) and tied it onto an exterior vent pipe with a RP145.

    My method (foam) blocked entry, his captured the radon and discharged it. Foam was less expensive and not as successful in reducing in home radon levels, but in that home there was no SSD system installed. The system with the soil gas barrier was actually 2 systems - the walls with the RP145 and a separate SSD with a 10gal extraction pit in the clay sub-slab and a 501 fan.

    The insulation contractor that did the foam was great and the foam looks much nicer.

    The ducuments Bruce notes are excellent references for this scenario.

    Best of luck
  • Time Magazine misses the radon story
    Great Idea Terry. My e-mail to Ms. Ducharme included that suggestion also.
  • Foam retarding Radon entry.
    Thanks Henri. A great point. We need 6" in many counties here in Ohio. Most of that area is almost always above grade anyway so there is less radon entry at the top of the wall. Good advise. Oh course they don't have quite the termite problem in Canada that we do in most of the States. Thanks.
  • Foam retarding Radon entry.
    Thanks to both of you! I originally thought about it because of an article I saw regarding the Demilek Soya product. I'm going to share these two articles with my client and his foam installer. I'll post a couple of photos of the walls Wednesday night.
    Thanks Bob and Bruce.
  • No correlation?
    Thanks Shawn and Bill. I do not understand how Mr. Stone could have made those statements if he had actually read the report that Dr. Field has provided to us.
    We'love to know if you hear back from the blogger.
  • Radon Diffusion Coefficient Testing
    I don’t know for sure, but I would think that Bowser Morner would be a perfect lab for that challenge.
  • Long-term Tamper proof box/cage?
    Happy New Year Tammy.
    That cover in your photo looks like a packaging "clam shell" of some sort. Maybe a packaging supplier that does that kind of manufacturing has something similar that would work.
    I use Tyvek envelopes all the time in my multi family applications. Basically the same as those Eric talked about, but I purchase them from Uline and take them to my quick print guy and have him print them and drill a hanger hole that I some times use to suspend them. (See photo) Ofcourse, I'm putting my E-Perms in them so the size is fine. If you were to put the Alpha Track in, seal it up (peal & stick flap on the envelope) then fold it in half and tack it to the wall it might work fine. There are also 2.5" X 3.5" coin Tyvek envelopes that you can get from envelopes.com and perhaps print on the, with a rubber stamp. Tyvek envelopes are great. Tyvek is transparent to air and gasses contained in it. The envelopes seal up nicely and occupants can not open it without damaging the envelope. On retrieval you can easily zip them open with a sharp letter opener. Rad Elec has done significant research regarding its use with E-Perms. I'm sure Rick would be willing to share that info with you. (And as Eric suggested, check with your Alpha Track lab for approval.)
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  • Weatherization and Radon
    Good evening Dick,

    My first thoughts went in the line of Kevin's remarks. While we will never know what the real numbers would have been without a passive RRNC system (designed to CCAH-2013) because the collection pipe and extensive sealing of the plenum beneath the slab can't be undone, neither can proper comparative with/without testing, I can site several examples of significant success if the protocol is followed very closely to the letter.

    However, since we are speaking of Weatherization of existing homes, I would have to concur that a passive system will likely have little significant radon reduction. However, as you well know, a well designed and installed ADS system will do wonders. And as John pointed out moisture reduction is amazing. I can't tell you the number of customers I've had that tell me that their dehumidifiers that previously ran constantly, do not ever run since instillation of raw ADS. I'm sure you have heard the same thing.

    Cost is a significant factor in this type of low income housing. I know that it is a ton of work from a coordination aspect, but there are numerous suppliers out there from Lowe's and Home Depot to Fan and equipment manufacturers and distributors who canned have helped to minimize the cost for truly needy families with elevated radon levels. Wx Program managers and administrators are probably accustomed to working with these type of donors, so it may not be a real problem for them - it is what they do.

    Good luck!

    David
  • Multifamily retest via Alpha Track
    Good morning Jeff,
    I'm in agreement with Tammy and Leo. The key here is to get all possible information to make a proper decision regarding potential mitigation. So the 100 O of ground contact units and 10% of above ground units is definitely the best way to go. That would give you 16 tests locations in each building (12 +2 +2 always rounding up on each floor).

    It is a shame that the original testing results are not available, but as Leo indicates, they may not be valid anyway. From a cost standpoint, this is much cheeper than treating a few units and then in clearance testing find out that the entire building should have been treated. (Although the entire building approach is usually the best.

    Good luck with the project.
  • Article - Southern Tier has dangerously high radon levels
    Great stuff.
    We need to get as many states up to speed with notification and awareness laws as possible. Thanks to Hanna getting this written and to Dr. Field for getting it to us.

David Metzger

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