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is randon testing not a standard part of a home purchase contract in some states? in my area you always get radon and termite
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Aug 15, 2023 17:43
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| # ? May 9, 2024 18:52 |
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Upgrade posted:is randon testing not a standard part of a home purchase contract in some states? in my area you always get radon and termite Mine it's a notice that radon exists but isn't a requirement. Pest (termite) is required, plus section 1 repairs. Section 2 is optional.
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Aug 15, 2023 17:46
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Radon testing is really loving cheap relative to everything else you're doing when buying and moving into a house, and pretty trivial. Usually it's just leave the kit in a room and don't gently caress with it for a few days, then mail it in to the testing center. There's zero reason not to test, even if it's not required where you are. You can deep dive on what the local geology is, the specific risk factors of your house (e.g. if you have a basement or are on a slab), etc. but at the end of the day what the gently caress ever, it's mindless and if nothing else it is cheap peace of mind.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:22
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Upgrade posted:is randon testing not a standard part of a home purchase contract in some states? in my area you always get radon and termite
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Aug 15, 2023 19:14
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Yeah there's just no safety culture of it west of the Mississippi. Also, basements don't exist for giant swathes of the southwest and west coast, because lack of frost line, so total accumulation is (probably?) pretty low. My friend with the cancer cats in AZ is slab on grade but apparently it can collect in SoG homes there. I only found out about radon being a thing in my 20s in Texas probably due to too much coffee and wikipedia
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Aug 15, 2023 19:20
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also proper radon testing takes like a week to get a good average and remediation is pretty straightforward so from what I've seen most people just don't bother since it's not generally an effective way to claw some concessions out of a seller.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:31
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I'm Hank Hillio. I need LP for my gas hole.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:32
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Cyrano4747 posted:Radon testing is really loving cheap You aren't kidding, this lab says it's $25/canister for mail order testing, including lab fees? I found them on the California list of approved testers. Picked one at random and for $25 I'm going to do it, why not? https://radonsurveysystems.com/testing
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Aug 15, 2023 21:00
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Hadlock posted:Yeah there's just no safety culture of it west of the Mississippi. Also, basements don't exist for giant swathes of the southwest and west coast, because lack of frost line, so total accumulation is (probably?) pretty low. My friend with the cancer cats in AZ is slab on grade but apparently it can collect in SoG homes there. I only found out about radon being a thing in my 20s in Texas probably due to too much coffee and wikipedia What? It came up in Montana and both of my homes in Denver.
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Aug 15, 2023 21:33
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Arsenic Lupin posted:I've never seen it mentioned after I moved out of New England (New Hampshire, then Massachusetts). It didn't even occur to me to have it tested for when I moved to my current address in California, because I knew it wasn't on granite. Time to update my head. It's pretty ubiquitous in Central IL; something about the heavy clay soil that had just enough uranium or whatever mixed in with it that it could get pretty bad. When I bought my house there in 2009 or so, the basement showed just barely below the line for remediation (iirc it's something like 4 picocuries per liter) and I lived there for 12 years without bothering to gently caress with it. The basement was only chest-deep into the ground and I frequently had windows open and/or the whole-house fan running for large stretches of the year so I wasn't overly worried about it. When I sold the house, it measured just barely over and we ended up footing the bill for a remediation system as part of the sale. And then there was the township maybe 15 miles away that sat very low and close to a river; apparently unmitigated houses could hit something like 300 pCi/L 
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Aug 15, 2023 21:45
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Silly question, but how high are the background concentrations around those places? I realize the problem with houses is they trap it, but in theory you're constantly breathing it in outdoors. I know its unavoidable, just curious.
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Aug 15, 2023 21:49
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H110Hawk posted:Silly question, but how high are the background concentrations around those places? I realize the problem with houses is they trap it, but in theory you're constantly breathing it in outdoors. I know its unavoidable, just curious. I was just scrolling through some articles and the figure I saw for typical outdoor concentration was 0.4 pCi/L. On a windy day I suspect that goes to about 0, though. Since it's a heavier-than-air gas, though, I guess I really don't know how one really gets rid of it entirely. Falls in a lake? Finds some low-lying pocket of undisturbed still air to retire to? 
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Aug 15, 2023 21:54
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I've been aware of radon but just never thought it was a concern in Florida. Turns out I'm in one of the counties with "moderate" potential for elevated radon levels and our state dept of health does free testing. Just got a test kit ordered online because why not?
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Aug 15, 2023 23:23
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The other cool thing about radon that doesn't seem to be common knowledge is that levels can change over time, and not just due to seasonality. You might buy a house and find out radon is below the FDA action level of 4 pCi/L when you do the initial inspection, but over the years soil and geologic changes, the house settling with age, or changes to the foundation can all mean levels might increase. Best practice is to retest every couple years. My area is known for higher radon levels and I installed a mitigation system myself after levels went from .5 pCi/L to about 8 after I had some foundation work done (new perimeter drain and sump pit installed). Levels are now at .25 or less most of the year. I got a nice digital meter but still plan to do the carbon based tests maybe 2x a decade just to confirm.
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Aug 15, 2023 23:33
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StormDrain posted:What? It came up in Montana and both of my homes in Denver. What is the frost line there
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Aug 15, 2023 23:40
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Sirotan posted:The other cool thing about radon that doesn't seem to be common knowledge is that levels can change over time, and not just due to seasonality. You might buy a house and find out radon is below the FDA action level of 4 pCi/L when you do the initial inspection, but over the years soil and geologic changes, the house settling with age, or changes to the foundation can all mean levels might increase. Best practice is to retest every couple years. I have one of the perpetual digital monitors meters as well, because the measurements were all over the place. Probably in part due to a large ranch house-sized basement footprint with a multi-level thing going on in the basement crawlspaces. The house did have a mitigation system installed, but it was only pulling from the one crawl space, and the other was still leaking a ton of gas up into the house. Dumb. The monitors I have don't seem to be for sale anymore, but there appear to now be plenty of ~100 dollar ones.
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Aug 16, 2023 00:13
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Hadlock posted:What is the frost line there You said west of the Mississippi and that's what I responded to.
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Aug 16, 2023 00:20
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The Airthings monitor I have provides cool charts and the raw data if you want to make your own. Here's what my Radon concentrations looked like over the last year. I'm in DFW, TX.
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Aug 16, 2023 04:13
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Ok I gotta ask what do you do with that? Like the radon of 3 looks bad but uh then what?
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Aug 16, 2023 04:14
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Hold your breath and open the door
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Aug 16, 2023 04:32
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MarcusSA posted:Ok I gotta ask what do you do with that? Like the radon of 3 looks bad but uh then what? As I understand it, unless it's regularly over 2 it's not really worth thinking about. 2-4 is not great and a zealous homeowner like me may do something about it. Over 4 and you need to get your poo poo fixed and install a radon mitigation system. I downloaded the entire history of Radon measurements Airthings has taken since I bought it back in January of 2022 and made a graph of the maximum reading each day. There are some times where it is above ideal, but most of the time it stays within the reasonable range. I'm not sure what caused that spike to 8. Maybe it malfunctioned or something. It's done similar things in the past with other readings like CO2. 
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Aug 16, 2023 04:40
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Just breathe deep and hope hormesis is real.
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Aug 16, 2023 05:01
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MarcusSA posted:Ok I gotta ask what do you do with that? Like the radon of 3 looks bad but uh then what? That's my question with indoor air quality monitors in general. Like ok... what now?
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Aug 16, 2023 12:08
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Guy Axlerod posted:I'm Hank Hillio. I need LP for my gas hole. Lol
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Aug 16, 2023 12:26
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Shifty Pony posted:That's my question with indoor air quality monitors in general. Well, if it's a serious, established problem (i.e. not a single weird spike that might be due to the dog farting on the sensor) you start researching how to mitigate the problem, the same as any other serious home issue. Will that require some effort? Certainly. Will it involve spending money? Most probably, perhaps a lot. Will it involve hiring a specialist? Perhaps. But however you go about remediating it, it's better to know about the problem so you can find out how to go about fixing it than to never know and hope for the best.
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Aug 16, 2023 13:29
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Shifty Pony posted:That's my question with indoor air quality monitors in general. You get a real tester for the thing you're concerned with because a consumer device with no calibration or maintenance since it came off the sea container is not data, it's entertainment. Actual meters for the things it claims to measure are both costly and require frequent maintenance and calibration.
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Aug 16, 2023 14:00
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Motronic posted:You get a real tester for the thing you're concerned with because a consumer device with no calibration or maintenance since it came off the sea container is not data, it's entertainment. Do you have any relevant articles or studies showing that Airthings or other name brand consumer devices are not within a reasonable level of accuracy compared to professional models because I have not been able to find one.
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Aug 16, 2023 15:12
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SpartanIvy posted:Do you have any relevant articles or studies showing that Airthings or other name brand consumer devices are not within a reasonable level of accuracy compared to professional models because I have not been able to find one. I have no idea who's tested it or where the results may be. Anyone who knows how various meters operate and are calibrated knows that's a waste of time, and there's no market competition between actual meters and this consumer device. Accurate metering requires more. Including consumable sensors. There exists no accurate "forever good and calibrated" replacement technology, or we'd be using it professionally. Airthings don't speak too much on it succinctly (which is a red flag), but they were called out enough that they had to come right out out and admit to their "VOC sensor" being largely bullshit. Not only in that it can't do much, but that they won't even quantify how much or little it does.
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Aug 16, 2023 15:30
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SpartanIvy posted:Do you have any relevant articles or studies showing that Airthings or other name brand consumer devices are not within a reasonable level of accuracy compared to professional models because I have not been able to find one. The burden of proof is on the person with the positive claim i.e. "this device can measure radon levels" not the negative claim "this device does nothing"
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Aug 16, 2023 16:10
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I know nothing about this specific technology but this could easily be instrument drift (vs actual analyte fluctuation) and ya wouldn't be surprised if another one out of the box read 50% higher or lower
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Aug 16, 2023 16:18
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Lots of these consumer devices happen to be very accurate, but cannot be used to certify levels. If you can calibrate it against something (say, a mail in test) you can be reasonably confident it will tell you something close enough to the truth that you know when you need to take action. You don't need a calibrated device for that. If it hovers at 2.5 and then goes up to 8 or 20 for a week, we'll that probably means some pocket of radon got popped and you need to take action. Or verify your mitigation system is still on, etc. There's a huge middle ground.
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Aug 16, 2023 16:20
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H110Hawk posted:Lots of these consumer devices happen to be very accurate, but cannot be used to certify levels. If you can calibrate it against something (say, a mail in test) you can be reasonably confident it will tell you something close enough to the truth that you know when you need to take action. You don't need a calibrated device for that. For how long would this comparative result be valid? How does one know if that's just a default-ish reading, or a new maximum reading from your consumer sensor and no matter how much radon is in the air it won't read any higher? These are the things we confirm through calibration. It's the old "I have this rock that protects me against tigers, and it's been 100% effective".
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Aug 16, 2023 16:28
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FWIW we got an Airthings radon sensor and and it read very similarly to both the pre and post mitigation professionally tested big-rear end-device-over-multiple-days levels. Is it going to be perfect? Definitely not. Is it better to be able to check a reading occasionally and at least have some signal that there might be cause for concern if it reads higher than normal? Absolutely. Especially against the other, more likely scenario of forgetting about things / never getting around to having them retested professionally. Edit: Ours read ~8-10 pre-mitigation and is typically < 0.7 post-mitigation. I lent the device to my neighbor (lived in his house for 25+ years) and he brought it back without using it saying maybe he's better off not knowing. I hope he doesn't get cancer. Dr. Eldarion fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 16:39
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Yeah I've got the Airthings radon meter as well. It is close enough to the results I got from the activated charcoal test that I am satisfied with my purchase and do like having something I can glance at every now and then to make sure things are still ok. There is no reason to make perfect the enemy of good for this type of thing, a big name consumer level device like Airthings is probably going to be good enough to at least give you some information that you might find useful in some way or other. You'd have to spend $$$$$ to buy professional-level gear that has to be recalibrated regularly, which just isn't a reasonable expectation for most homeowners.
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Aug 16, 2023 16:43
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I don't get my CO alarms calibrated, but I also only trust them to have two states. Good, and Bad. I take it radon detection isn't even at that level to trust for 10 years?
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Aug 16, 2023 16:43
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Guy Axlerod posted:I don't get my CO alarms calibrated, but I also only trust them to have two states. Good, and Bad. I take it radon detection isn't even at that level to trust for 10 years? CO alarms are calibrated and UL listed to be accurate enough for their rated life (10 years.) I was very specific not stating smoke or monoxide detectors for this reason.  However I am with the "perfect is the enemy of good" crowd. The pattern will change if they fail in some way, which humans are great at detecting.
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Aug 16, 2023 16:51
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Shifty Pony posted:That's my question with indoor air quality monitors in general. If it's something that concerns you then you try to do something about it. In my case, we started using better filters on our furnace and set up an air purifier in our living room - that reduced our PM measurements. Our sensor also reported that our CO2 gets a little high when the windows are closed, so we bought some houseplants
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Aug 16, 2023 17:11
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Dr. Eldarion posted:... and he brought it back without using it saying maybe he's better off not knowing. I hope he doesn't get cancer. Hah! I loaned mine to both neighbors and they both said "ehh it was good". Perhaps a similar thing. Or our house was built unluckily right on top of a narrow column of radon or something. Fwiw, I bought 2 meters in part to check them against each other (and figure out where the hell the issue was in the multi levels of crawlspaces). There are instructions to send them in every so often to get recalibration.
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Aug 16, 2023 17:13
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Dr. Eldarion posted:
This is baffling to me. Radon mitigation isn't that expensive, especially not on the scale that a lot of home bullshit works on.
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Aug 16, 2023 17:56
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Outside of the fraudulent sensors that fake the data from one or two unrelated sensor chips, the trouble is these devices pack a diverse array of sensors in them and each variable and sensing method is going to have unique accuracy/drift concerns. Temperature is going to be pretty darn good because stable voltage references are relatively cheap and reliable. "VOC" is going to be bullshit because "VOC" is a massive class of compounds and anything short of a gas chromatography or mass spectrometer is making assumptions about what you expect to see and will be inaccurate outside those assumptions. The other sensors are going to be somewhere in between. All of them are going to be slow as gently caress to respond due to the devices being passive. FWIW Airthings apparently makes a commercial version of their radon sensor, but it requires annual calibration/recertification. They also say that they use a GRIMM system as a calibration reference for their PM2.5 sensors but I don't see any way to send a residential system in for recalibration. edit: Basically besides for temperature and maybe CO2/CO none of the sensors should be showing more than two significant figures at best or a "low", "moderate", "high" at worst. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Aug 16, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2023 18:02
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