New Radon Fan after 10 years

 The radon fan in the garage has always generated a low hum, but lately it had been getting quite bad.

So I picked up a new one and installed it today.  It is amazing quiet!  I can't remember if the old one was ever this quiet, but it hasn't been in a long time.

Vapor Intrusion... Who knew?!

I received an email from Aria Cahill regarding this infograph. Seems like some good information and another reason I am happy we were able to address our radon issue.  Apparently there are other chemicals in the ground as well that act similar to radon and will intrude into your basement.  It appears that the mitigation is the same as for radon, so we are covered.

Radon Mitigation Success !

After reading an article in newspaper about radon in the Twin Cities, Jen thought we should test our basement (since we had just put in a gas fireplace).  Test came back with a reading of 10 pCi/L, 4 is the EPA recommended level.  So we bought an electronic meter and stayed out of the basement for a week.

We placed the sensor in the same location to verify the accuracy with the other test.  The reading for the electronic meter came back at 12.  The directions say to place the meter 20 inches above the floor, but since we are always crawling around we thought we would get a reading on the floor.  On the floor the reading was 25-30 pCi/L.

So after doing some reading I found that typical installation fees for mitigation systems run $800 to $1200, which I thought was a bit excessive for the materials involved.  Being a DIY kind of guy I installed the system myself and now the reading is 1.2 pCi/L on the floor!  We are very happy.

Cost:

• Fan - $100
• Pipe - $50
• Drill rental - $70
• Incidentals - ~$50 ?

So for about $300 I was able to install the system.  It wasn't too hard and it was very satisfying to see the reduction in the reading.