We have seen the same over the years with the safety siren pro 3’s - at about year 5 they start to get squirrelly. They do have a new one out now called the safety siren pro 4 - I have yet to see one though in person.

Wow! Well said Randy!
A simple “should” before the “shall” would have prevented all of the disagreements happening right now and would have given a chance for “us” the mitigators to see what works and what doesn’t for active notification.

Bill I have both the radon eye and airthings corentium down in my basement - they have been down there for many years side by side and they are both right in line with one another. Every once in a while a cross check them with one of my Sun Nuclear or Femto tech crm’s and they are always spot on.





The nice thing about the airthings device is they have a holster that will screw right to the vent pipe for interior installations. For 100% exterior systems it can be fixed to the wall in a location approved by the homeowner. We also have many many customers with these devices and I can assure you if anything looked off we would be getting a phone call. Not one yet...

Radon fan manufacturers warranty - 5 years

Active notification device /
System alarm manufacturers warranty - 1 year

What am I missing here?

I agree Robert - these highly accurate low cost CRM’s for homeowners are becoming very common and the cost is dropping on them every year. I am starting to see some in the $70 dollar range now.
Makes no sense to try and reinvent the wheel and force mitigators to come up with creative solutions to implement an active alarm / notification that has been prematurely required; when homeowners still have trouble with the simple U-tube device. We actually get our share of calls just on the manometer - let alone a battery powered alarms with a 1 year warranty.
I urge the committee to please let a few more years go by and then circle back and revisit this topic and see where the manufacturers are at with viable products or maybe we go a different direction entirely like the CRM’s. It’s really not fair to us what is happening now. MN the first state to actually legally enforce the requirement is becoming a test bed for these active notification devices at our business’s expense.

Here is a great example of what Bill is describing on a system done by David Smith on a school.

Bill - one more thing to think about and take to the committee.

How about systems that are horizontally cored into the foundation wall from outside the home or building? We only do a few of these a year - but in other parts of the country they do system installation like this frequently. This creates an outside only condition to place an alarm. The water proof tackle box method or the outdoor 6x6 or 4x4 junction box is an option to help keep it out of the elements. But not the temperatures.
Outdoor installations on these alarms voids the warranty.

I definitely appreciate the donation of time the standards committee gives to the industry. And I have applied to be on the committee (still haven’t heard back yet). I also encourage others to apply - especially radon mitigation contractors. We all have real world experience that deserves to be shared and contributed.

Thanks for sharing that Marcel.
This goes to show how important field testing is prior to requirement of such a major change to a radon mitigation system. If required - there needs to be a standard on the make-up of that individual piece of required equipment to protect “us” the mitigation contractors installing them. Fail-safes - what happens when the alarm fails - is there a beep to let the homeowner know? What is the warranty on these alarms? Is it the same as the typical 5 year warranty on the fan? If alarms have a shorter life then the fan - will anyone voluntarily replace them?
If homeowners think an alarm or light will tell them about a dead fan and the alarm is dead then they will have a false sense of security and never check the fan. How about the cost $ on the mitigator? How much would a service call need to be for a mitigation contractor to replace a dead alarm or dead battery. This leads us back to what the manufacturers warranty is on the alarm. Needs to match the fan warranty? Hopefully all this was thought about by the SGM-SF consensus body members.

Thanks Dallas for the post.

We are definitely aware that the active notification monitors are not required to be audible.
However - I have researched all available alarms on the market and not one has just a light that comes on. They are all both the alarm and a light. A simple switch to turn the alarm portion off would have been great. But no current manufacturer as offered that.
That being said I don’t feel there are “improved and cost effective products” out there to satisfy the standard at this time.

Also I brought up the argument on field testing. Has anyone done a comprehensive field study on these alarms? That could be an absolute disaster if these alarms started failing after say a year in use.
Or in a situation where we install the U-tube in an attached garage that is not conditioned. Zero temps on a battery powered alarm in a garage would be a disaster.

Also - what I saw was 33 consensus SGM-SF body members that helped create ANSI / AARST SGM-SF 2017 and 4 or 5 of them were radon mitigation contractors. I find a lot wrong in that.

...And Bruce - you are exactly why we need more mitigation contractors on the standards committee.
I thank you for commenting on here because everything you just said proved my and others point and why Randy originally posted this alarm issue on here.
Thank you!!!

Well said Rich!

I agree Bob - the air things or radon eye monitors is a much better solution. I would say 50% of our customers already have them. It seems like the system alarms are actually an old solution when we see how many own these crm’s already.
Also - are these system alarms being field tested?
The newest one available has a 48 hour delay (but is made in China with a Chinese battery). Bill brings up the analogy of an oil gauge and a warning light.
Those 2 work together in a hardwired system from the factory in a car. Sounds great in theory - but that is a far cry from what represents this in a current radon mitigation system and what is available to us.

In MN where we can experience below zero temps for weeks. RE: Pipe size 3” or 4”, foam core, air flow makes no difference. They all usually end up with the classic snow cone at the top / exhaust end and a phone call from the homeowner. This is especially true on newer systems where the humidity leaving the pipe is far greater then on older systems. And installation of all interior systems is not a practical answer. So are we to tell the homeowner of an old 2 story home that your system will cost you 3 times the amount of $ so we can install a system alarm? 3 times the amount because of the disruption we will cause in your house to thread the pipe through walls and closets.

I and most mitigators in MN (see Randy’s original post) do not agree with setting off an alarm at 3:00am and waking up a homeowner because their system froze. A terrible idea to say the least and crippling to our businesses when the next day we will get run over by phone calls.

There are many low cost crm monitors available today that would be a great alternative to a blaring alarm. And I think most homeowners would agree.
A failed radon fan event does not need a blaring alarm event that instant. This individual standard needs more time to be thought through and more input from the ones being forced to install them.

After looking at the list of names that contributed to the ANSI/AARST SGM 2017 standard I find it troubling that the amount of mitigators on their are of a small percentage. And of the ones on the list - I would like to know how many actively install systems in a climate like ours.

I personally would also like to see a new method for including mitigatior’s in on decisions that effect our business’s like a system alarm. I would have love to have been a fly on the wall while the standards committee discussed such a controversial issue.
We are the back bone of the industry and I fell like we are getting pushed to the side while a small majority tries to insert themselves into what we built.