Radon Mitigation System

[Cycsk]

Lest anyone is not taking this seriously, let me strongly encourage you to do so. Three years ago, my wife died from lung cancer. She never smoked and was extremely health conscious in terms of lifestyle, diet, exercise, etc. Our understanding of cancer is that it is not caused directly by the usual suspects, but indirectly as the result of chronic inflammation.

Here is our best understanding of why/how she got lung cancer:

1. For 18 years (and college holidays), she lived in a home where cigarettes were smoked heavily. Her oncologist thought that her lungs took about 50% of the damage even though she never smoked.

2. We moved into a home where she lived and worked for 17 years in the midst of high levels of radon. One of my eternal regrets is blowing off the home inspector when he tried to "upsell" me on a radon test.

3. She handled the chemicals for our in-ground pool for 14 years. Her cancer symptoms came on strong shortly after we opened the pool in 2017.

We think radon played a big part in re-activating chronic lung inflammation that set the stage for full-on lung cancer.

Here is a link to a post I made about her 3 years ago.

My Wife Didn't Waste Her Cancer

It was an honor to be mentioned on the Quarantine podcast Sunday night. I’m just now getting back to the place where I want to be posting on the site. I have been blessed with great family and friends. A great church family and professional colleagues. Great neighbors. And I have a great...

cyclonefanatic.com

I regret that I didn't emphasize radon mitigation in that post, so I'm doing so now.

P.S. If any of you run radon mitigation companies, please remember me at Christmas for sending so much business your way!

 

[Clonedogg]

We moved last year, I did the radon test shortly after we moved in. It registered 6.8, since that's relatively low but above recommended level of 4, I was able to bring down the numbers by passive mitigation, caping and sealing the sump pit. The after test was 2.2, which anything between 2-3.9 you're suppose to monitor, but no further action is needed. I will do a annual or bi-annual test, and if it goes higher than 4 I will have to add active mitigation, vent tubing and fan. The sump cap I installed has an adapter that I can add the vent tube.

 

[ISUAlum2002]

We moved last year, I did the radon test shortly after we moved in. It registered 6.8, since that's relatively low but above recommended level of 4, I was able to bring down the numbers by passive mitigation, caping and sealing the sump pit. The after test was 2.2, which anything between 2-3.9 you're suppose to monitor, but no further action is needed. I will do a annual or bi-annual test, and if it goes higher than 4 I will have to add active mitigation, vent tubing and fan. The sump cap I installed has an adapter that I can add the vent tube.

We had an unfinished basement up until a few years ago and once we finished it we decided to get it tested since we'd be down there with our kids a lot more. We did one of those charcoal tray tests and after sending it to the lab I got an e-mail basically saying "you should move your family to a hotel and get it remediated if you haven't already." The test results put it at 11.4. I bought a digital tester and that thing was registering anywhere from 24-26 on average in the lower level. The main level and upper level were much lower, maybe around 5-7. I installed a sump cap also and got it sealed up tight but it didn't do much to reduce the levels at all.

After I had the remediation system installed it dropped down to 0.2 to 0.4 consistently in the lower level. A massive improvement and it's held up for 3+ years now. I just pulled up the receipt and it was $1,165.00 from Central Iowa Radon.