One disadvantage of building an underground house/bunker is the ever present threat of radon. I bough a radon detector and had it laying in the utility room of our house while I built it and had minimal radon readings. I let my neighbor borrow my detector for several months and just got it back only to discover we now have a problem. I'm going to take the opportunity to see what works and what doesn't to fix the problem. Our house is off grid so I am going to avoid putting in a full time radon pump if possible. I am getting readings in the 12-14 range which is 4 times the generally accepted limit. I found our foundation water drains tonight and they were plugged with mud so I uncovered them and cleaned them out. I also opened the damper on the chimney to get a little air flow through the house. next I will seal the slab where it meets the exterior walls and may seal the conduits that come into the utility room. If these things do not fix it I will drill a hole in the slab and make a passive vent to the outside. I may paint the exposed portion of the vent black to encourage an up draft.
You're off grid, so I'd venture a guess that a whole house fan is out of the question. But air movement is key. Sealing the pad clear to the foundation exterior walls will help also. Do-It-Yourself Basement Waterproofing Sealer | RadonSeal
Here in New England we are either the radon capital of the world with all the granite, or have the worlds best con men selling radon mitigation systems. Old houses were vented by stoves etc in winter pulling in outside air and venting inside air up chimney and in summer by open windows. New houses with external air used for combustion, heat pumps, solar, or other "non polluting" heat sources, super tight construction in order to be "energy" efficient, etc have all kinds of problems with inside air, radon, molds, industrial pollution from sheet rock, rugs, floor coverings furniture, etc, as the air in the house is not exchanged for days. If it was necessary to use the fall out shelters, I wonder how many people would die due to ventilation problems? Seems like every time the power goes off, there are problems with generators and CO, and usually someone does themselves in with the stoves when they open up the cabins for snowmobiling. Lost a teacher in our town that way, stove pipe rusted out over the summer, he built a fire, went to bed, they found him 2 days later when he didn't return home. Not a joke, all the preps in the world do no good if you have cancer or are dead. Thank you for reminding me, I haven't checked my house since I tyveced it and put on vinyl siding, might be a good idea.
I was suspicious of those radon mitigation guys when I sold my last house that is why I bought my own detector but I showed the same thing they reported. The problem is the house is all concrete and sealed up tight, it is difficult to get the stove to draft properly without a door cracked. Initially I did not seal around one of the skylights in the bathroom to let it vent and I noticed that when the wood stove was running the draft from the stove would pull snow in through the cracks around that skylight. I am going to put an addition on it and when I do I am going to run some ventilation pipes underground to draw in air at ground temperature.
Aren't there room air filter units that will attract and collect radon ? Seems to me that if one built a filter cabinet with nothing more than computer fan drawing air through charcoal filter material or what ever element that absorbs radon on might catch a significant portion as well as dust and other things . Also the moving air can do more good than stagnant air in an enclosed place. I have fan's going almost year round ,not just dealing with heat but I like the movement .
Simply, no. Colorless, odorless inert (non reactive noble) gas. The only remedy for environmental radon is removal by ventilation.
But if all your doing is blowing it out side ,can't it get back in ,from whence the air originated ? So if it is a gas why not use something like a rainbow vacuum cleaner and use water to capture the gas , or what ever fluid that is most appropriate for the job. There has to be a way of separating/capturing the gas .
I have a sister who is a scientist, Ill ask her about absorbing radon. Seems like if it is escaping from dirt though and nothing in the ground is absorbing it the odds are low.
Nope, there's no way to keep it from recirculating other than keeping the ventilation discharge in clear air. It will not migrate back into the rock it comes from. So far as the vacuum cleaner idea goes, radon is a gas and will simply pass thru ANY particulate filter or bubbler type collector. It is chemically inert, so there's no reactive mechanism that will capture and hold it. There are some very expensive physical mechanisms (gas centrifuge comes to mind) but I promise you Elon Musk likely could not spend that kind of money.
Here in Northern Idaho radon is also a problem. The simple key is ventilation which sort of defeats the purpose of what newer homes try to achieve which is air tight homes for good insulation. We have a lot of vents under the house (5 foot crawl space) and those are all open 9 months a year. During the 3 months of winter we close all of them or leave just 1 or 2 open. There is not much else you can do beside putting a fan system down there.
Exactly so. New homes in areas with known radon problems will have a plenum cast below the basement floor which is then ducted outside with a small fan, thus bypasses the need for continuous indoor air changes.
In my old house they cut a 4 inch hole in the slab and installed a PVC pipe with a fan that was ducted outside. The fan created a vacuum under the slab and the radon was blown outside.
Yup, common retrofit done after the radon sample kit returns with out of spec readings. My neighbor had that done. Why, asks you, didn't I do the same? 'Cause my basement opens on grade (house is on the side of a hill) and the garage doors don't seal well.
If I had a radon problem would be doing some experimenting . Just because no one has admitted to a solution does not mean there isn't one .
I have been looking for a solar radon fan and could not find anything but then I realized a marine bilge air blower is basically the same thing. I ordered one off eBay for $24. My radon numbers are down to 8 since I opened up the foundation drains but that is still too high so I will keep pressing on.
You might be better off with something better the a cheap marine bilge blower, IMO they don't have a significant lifetime . A computer fan will give you better longer service and use less energy. many of them are 12 volts . and cheaper .
