old.sparkles

Congratulations

I will keep for you

spouse of scouse

Great news! It'll be lovely for you both to have your own place again.

ddsrph

Is Radon testing part of a real estate transaction in your area? It’s not here in Tennessee but I have heard it is in some parts of the country.

Pulaski

That would be because the foundations of a house have to be below the frost line, the line below which the ground is never going to freeze, and the water and sewer utilities need to be below this depth too. The frost line depth is set very conservatively in the local building codes, so in Canada a builder is going to need to dig down to a level which gives you most if not all of a basement anyway, so at that point it just makes sense to raise the ground floor up enough to give full, or at least adequate headroom for a basement.

You are correct, or at least half correct, for the reasons explained above.

The frost line here (NC) is very shallow, so basements are rare, but our home is built on a slope so there is a full height door to give access to the crawlspace (dirt-floored cellar-like void under the ground floor), which is nearly 7ft high in the corner where the door is. The dirt floor slopes up in both directions (siedways and towards the road), but there is still more than 3ft of headroom in the far corner, so when our house was built the dug a space that was about 75% of the volume for a full basement, but didn't go the small extra amount of work to give the house a full basement. It would even have been easy to add stairs down to the basement under the stairs up to the second floor, but instead there is just a triangular closet under the stairs.

Jolly Good

It is. I had never heard of it in Texas either.

ddsrph

The major driving force behind Radon in homes came from Pennsylvania. A known problem in Uranium mines but it really became an issue in homes when a house in Pennsylvania was found to have over 10,000 times the acceptable amount. A nuclear power plant worker set off the radiation detectors leaving work and an investigation found his home had the extremely high level. You can find this case easily for further reading if interested. I think it was Potsdam, PA.

Pulaski

The reason is the underlying geology, and not just uranium mines - if your home is built on land with underlying granite, which naturlly contains radioisotopes, then there is a risk that the granite is releasing radon, which may, or may not, escape through the surface soil and up into your home. This can be the case in the part of NC where I live. It is a fairly well known issue in parts of the UK too - notably parts of Cornwall and the area of Scotland around Aberdeen where the underlying rock is granite.

Nutmegger

It comes along with those basements you have been discussing! We have a mitigator at our house.

Jolly Good

This was an issue in the house from last week that we terminated buying. It had a high reading after the 48 hour test so another reason why I'm glad we changed our mind.

Jolly Good

Our inspector explained that to us yesterday and I think we will have one put in as our level was just over the limit a few times during the 48 test and as we intend to use the basement as living space.

I'm learning new stuff every day!

ddsrph

I fully understand that. The decay of Uranium into Radon makes uranium mines a no brainer and was the first relating Radon to lung cancer. Radon is a short lived element decaying into a cascade that takes 20 years to become non radio active lead. I think the half life of Radon is a matter of a few days or hours. Doesn’t Radon come from Uranium impurities in granite and not granite in general.

Pulaski

Yes, virtually all natural radioactivity from elemental decay on earth is primarily a result of the presence of uranium, as that is the only element with a long enough half life to still exist in any measurable quantity after the 4.5billion years since earth formed. There is going to be some radioactive minerals from meteorites, but only a small amount, as any meteorite from within the solar system would also be no older than the earth is i.e. made from the same stuff as earth. .... And yes, granite, as an igneous rock ejected from under the earth's crust by volcanic activity, has uranium in it. I assume that the uranium in granite has probably made a few atoms of other elements in the granite radioactive, but I would guess it is a very small number that exist - few are created and most decay relatively quickly.

ddsrph

When I built my first house I was largely unaware of the Radon issue. Years later when I checked my levels they were at the acceptable risk level of 4 pico curies per liter. I still decided to install a system as it was easy in my basement and dropped the level by a factor of 10. In my new house I made some arrangements as I built it for Radon and after testing to the same approximate 4 pico curies per liter I bought a pump for attic and connected my system. I have not rechecked levels but it’s on my list of things to do.

Nutmegger

We put one in our house when we moved in 24 years ago and when we re-check, all is well. Because the ground is very rocky in CT, radon is a common issue. Our three-story house is two stories at the front, but three at the back as the walk-out finished basement is built into the cliff.

ddsrph

It’s same here in Tennessee and we have a reputation for possible high levels. I have been on a few websites with people saying it’s all a big conspiracy theory (surprise, surprise). I just ask them how much radio active gas do you want to breath in. Not only radon but the solid radio active daughter products floating around their house.