Has anyone dealt with a house that has high levels of radon? We are in the process of buying a house and we had it tested for radon. Safe levels are less than 4. The report came back with levels of over 5.6. Please tell me your experiences!
My brother had to have a ventilation system installed in the home they bought with high radon levels. From the way he talked about it, it wasn't a big deal to do. That's the only experience I have, not sure how much it'll help.
Post by mrs.jacinthe on Dec 12, 2012 14:20:47 GMT -5
Our OH house had radon. You can get mitigation systems installed for around $1K-ish (ours was $850, I think - the sellers paid for it).
Honestly, it's no biggie. Simplified - they drill a hole through the foundation floor and then out an exterior wall, connect the two with PVC, then put a fan system in, which draws the radon from under the foundation and blows it out the wall, essentially. It's a somewhat ugly system, but you can usually hide it in your utility area.
And ETA - while 5.6 is on the high side, levels can get much higher than that (our OH house was 12.5 when we had it tested before the mitigation system), so yours should be an easy fix.
Our sellers had the house tested before putting it on the market. It came back a bit over 4, so they installed a radon mitigation system. It's not really a big deal and we don't notice it at all. Any seller should be willing to do it since if you back out of the contract, they'll have to disclose the info to any new buyers (who will also want a system installed). FWIW, I don't think it's a huge deal. I think in Canada up to an 8 is acceptable.
Our radon levels came back over 13 last year during our inspection. With that, we amended our contract to include installation of a radon mitigation system. The company that installed it also left a follow up test, but we haven't used it yet.
Our system is PVC and a mitigation fan. I guess that's standard since that's all I've ever seen on houses around here. The PVC starts in the sump pit (which has a fixed cover), then it extends through an exterior wall to the outside where the fan pulls the air out of the sump pit. It's a little loud outside, but I don't notice it inside.
Thanks for your responses. So those of you that had systems installed in your homes, are you worried at all about the problem (or past problem). If you have the mitigation system installed in your house what is the radon level in your home? Does it go to 0-1? Or does it still hover around 4?
Post by mrs.jacinthe on Dec 12, 2012 14:48:00 GMT -5
No worries here. You can retest (or have the home retested) and you should occasionally have the system checked by the installer.
Honestly, I wasn't that worried about the 12 - we asked the sellers to do it and they did, but if they hadn't, we wouldn't have been in a rush to get it done. Ours reduced to around 2 with mitigation. We were cool with that.
Can you go back and renegotiate a price (for the house)? Given this problem? Or normally they install the mitigation system and call it good?
You can attempt to renegotiate the agreement to have the sellers install the mitigation system or reduce the cost of the house to cover your install costs.
Honestly, I'd laugh if someone tried to negotiate me, as the seller, down on a mitigated house, though. It's not the plague.
Can you go back and renegotiate a price (for the house)? Given this problem? Or normally they install the mitigation system and call it good?
You can attempt to renegotiate the agreement to have the sellers install the mitigation system or reduce the cost of the house to cover your install costs.
Honestly, I'd laugh if someone tried to negotiate down on a mitigated house, though. It's not the plague.
You can attempt to renegotiate the agreement to have the sellers install the mitigation system or reduce the cost of the house to cover your install costs. Honestly, I'd laugh if someone tried to negotiate down on a mitigated house, though. It's not the plague.
No, not the plague, just lung cancer....
Once it's mitigated, no lung cancer. The problem is the air getting stagnant in the low areas where it can accumulate. You fix that problem, there is nothing more to worry about. The only other thing you can do is move to another area of the country away from the type of ground (granite) that is high in radon.
My aunt had a pretty big radon problem in the basement of her Hartford CT home. It's newer construction (built after 2000) and her office was in the basement! It was bad enough that she had tests done on herself and the doctor insists she needs to be screened often to make sure she doesn't develop lung cancer. I have no idea what the number was(?) but I know they spent somewhere around 7k to have it fixed.
My brother had to have a ventilation system installed in the home they bought with high radon levels. From the way he talked about it, it wasn't a big deal to do. That's the only experience I have, not sure how much it'll help.
My sister had a similar experience and had the sellers foot the bill for this.