I posted on H&G but I know there is a lot of house chat here and definitely more traffic.
I have noticed that a couple of our neighbors suddenly have radon fans/vents on their houses, so I want to get tested, just in case. Is this something we can do with a home testing kit, or is it worth the money to have an inspector come and do it?
Post by tripleshot on Jan 21, 2013 13:13:33 GMT -5
Definitely have a certified radon inspector do it. They'll put a monitor in one room of the house and leave it for 24-48 hrs. I can't remember the time period. If its positive, you should consider a mitigation system.
Yes get tested but I think you can buy a DIY kit to do at home. We had it done when we bought our home and the seller paid for mitigation which was about $2k including the permits.
LoveTrains, we do not live near a hill or large granite formation. Our next door neighbor has had basement flooding and just sold the house, so it's possible the mitigation system was installed because of those issues. I am a bit more concerned because the people living behind them also have a brand new mitigation system and they do not live in the bottom of a slope and therefore probably don't have basement flooding issues.
It sounds as though the best (and most MM) first step for us is to do a long-term DIY test to see if we even have a basis for concern. My next question then, presuming we have a problem, is whether the potential harm from spending the next year testing rather than mitigating is something that should concern us. I'm just a bit concerned since we've gone 8 years without testing, although perhaps another <12 months wouldn't really make a difference at this point. And really, a professional inspector would require the full 3-12 months anyway, yes?
Thanks, RnV, very helpful. Our basement is not finished and we spend as little time as possible down there. Basements are good for storage, but creepy, LOL. <<< has seen too many scary movies