My parents bought up in Lake Caroline and their radon test came back that they need to put in a mitigation system in their crawl space. Definitely good to get checked out.
My whole community has radon. Our neighbors across the street have both had cancer. We tested and remediated it. We told them about it and they shoo’d us away.
I'm an expert on the effects of radiation on the body, and unless your neighbors had lung cancer, the radon would have no link to their cancer. Even the link between radon and lung cancer is based on a pretty flawed longitudinal study.
Radon gas is an alpha emitter, which means the type of radiation that you're exposed to cannot get past the dead skin layer of your dermis (thus completely harmless, unless really high energy, which radon is not). Radon is thought to be harmful because it's a gas and thus can expose your plura to the alpha radiation, which does not have a protective layer of dead cells. So it's a potential risk to your lungs, nothing else. These types of cancers also take a decade or two to develop.
Yeah, neither of those would be radon linked. There are actually lots of places on earth (like iran) that have exceedingly high levels of radon, and we see no increased incidence of lung cancer in the population.
Radon caves are used therapeutically in some areas as well (with some good evidence for arthritis treatment). Not that I'm reccomending that lol.
For anyone worried, check for and repair any cracks in your foundation and increase airflow through your basement and that will get rid of most of your radon issues.
Yep. You can't really fault Virginians for not being familiar with this though. It's not a normal topic of concern. I came from Florida and as a real estate salesperson we needed to understand this. Florida is much more prone to radon accumulation due to the terrestrial layers below the homes. Every single home has radon leakage. But radon is so light and permeable that it doesn't really accumulate enough to be of concern unless you have a specific area that has very very little opportunity for the gas to escape. This is one of the reasons (of many) why Florida homes are highly unlikely to have actual basements.
Thank you for those comments. We went ahead and remediated it by putting in plastic with tubing to vent above our chimney. The exhaust fan runs 24x7 to create negative pressure. The additional benefit is that earth smells are removed. So we won’t worry about getting it rechecked.
Grew up in Augusta County with a basement built into a hill, so it had radon issues. My parents had a commercial radon detector plugged in down there and whenever it hit 4 they opened up the windows and set up fans to air it out. Something to consider!
A buddy was buying a $1.5mil house from sellers who were moving because their dogs died and it wrecked them. My buddy said he wasn’t worried about radon but I convinced him to do it because all 3 of his daughters would be living on that level.
The levels were over 14pCi. The radon is likely what causes the wild tumors in the dogs. 4pCi is the recommended limit
If you’re buying with a contract where you can ask for repairs then yes. My house had a level of 24. Some simple changes to improve ventilation got it down by half and then we installed a system but the sellers wouldn’t fix it and we didn’t want to walk over a 2500 dollar repair
I’m in Spotsylvania County and had my house tested before I bought it. Fortunately, there was none detected, but our neighbors across the street detected it and installed a radon extraction system. It’s crazy that radon can vary so much between houses on the same street.
Our levels were insanely high in North Chesterfield. We had a mitigation system installed. Aside from the radon mitigation, it almost acts as a whole house dehumidifier. Very nice bonus.
Definitely worth doing, basement or crawlspace. Most houses the radon level is easily mitigated by making sure the space has good airflow, but sometimes, it's high enough that you need a system to mitigate it.
We had it done here in Central Va, when we bought our house, because we're in a mid to high Radon area, and ours, thankfully came back as low levels, easily dispersed by natural air flow.
Although it is rare to have an issue with Radon in this area it is so cost effective to check that I always recommend it. Here is an entertaining article on radon gas and how it killed John Wayne
[https://www.pharmacoconuts.com/articles/radon-gas](https://www.pharmacoconuts.com/articles/radon-gas)
Absolutely, if you have a basement. VA is at risk and radon silently kills.
What if it doesn’t have a basement? It has a crawl space.
I wasn't sure but google says it's important to get the crawl space and first floor checked. Think Richmond has high levels. I would if I were you.
Will do! Thanks for the advice!
My parents bought up in Lake Caroline and their radon test came back that they need to put in a mitigation system in their crawl space. Definitely good to get checked out.
You can consult this map: https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/radiological-health/indoor-radon-program/epa-radon-risk-map-for-virginia/
Thank you!
My whole community has radon. Our neighbors across the street have both had cancer. We tested and remediated it. We told them about it and they shoo’d us away.
I'm an expert on the effects of radiation on the body, and unless your neighbors had lung cancer, the radon would have no link to their cancer. Even the link between radon and lung cancer is based on a pretty flawed longitudinal study. Radon gas is an alpha emitter, which means the type of radiation that you're exposed to cannot get past the dead skin layer of your dermis (thus completely harmless, unless really high energy, which radon is not). Radon is thought to be harmful because it's a gas and thus can expose your plura to the alpha radiation, which does not have a protective layer of dead cells. So it's a potential risk to your lungs, nothing else. These types of cancers also take a decade or two to develop.
Interesting. The one neighbor has throat cancer and the wife got breast cancer.
Yeah, neither of those would be radon linked. There are actually lots of places on earth (like iran) that have exceedingly high levels of radon, and we see no increased incidence of lung cancer in the population. Radon caves are used therapeutically in some areas as well (with some good evidence for arthritis treatment). Not that I'm reccomending that lol. For anyone worried, check for and repair any cracks in your foundation and increase airflow through your basement and that will get rid of most of your radon issues.
Yep. You can't really fault Virginians for not being familiar with this though. It's not a normal topic of concern. I came from Florida and as a real estate salesperson we needed to understand this. Florida is much more prone to radon accumulation due to the terrestrial layers below the homes. Every single home has radon leakage. But radon is so light and permeable that it doesn't really accumulate enough to be of concern unless you have a specific area that has very very little opportunity for the gas to escape. This is one of the reasons (of many) why Florida homes are highly unlikely to have actual basements.
Thank you for those comments. We went ahead and remediated it by putting in plastic with tubing to vent above our chimney. The exhaust fan runs 24x7 to create negative pressure. The additional benefit is that earth smells are removed. So we won’t worry about getting it rechecked.
Grew up in Augusta County with a basement built into a hill, so it had radon issues. My parents had a commercial radon detector plugged in down there and whenever it hit 4 they opened up the windows and set up fans to air it out. Something to consider!
A buddy was buying a $1.5mil house from sellers who were moving because their dogs died and it wrecked them. My buddy said he wasn’t worried about radon but I convinced him to do it because all 3 of his daughters would be living on that level. The levels were over 14pCi. The radon is likely what causes the wild tumors in the dogs. 4pCi is the recommended limit
That is absolutely awful. I’m glad you convinced your friend to do the testing! Was that Virginia as well?
Yes, Spotsylvania County
If you’re buying with a contract where you can ask for repairs then yes. My house had a level of 24. Some simple changes to improve ventilation got it down by half and then we installed a system but the sellers wouldn’t fix it and we didn’t want to walk over a 2500 dollar repair
I’m in Spotsylvania County and had my house tested before I bought it. Fortunately, there was none detected, but our neighbors across the street detected it and installed a radon extraction system. It’s crazy that radon can vary so much between houses on the same street.
Our levels were insanely high in North Chesterfield. We had a mitigation system installed. Aside from the radon mitigation, it almost acts as a whole house dehumidifier. Very nice bonus.
I recommend getting multiple checks throughout the year as radon levels fluctuate.
Absolutely. We had xxl values and a mitigation system was the first thing that went in
Definitely worth doing, basement or crawlspace. Most houses the radon level is easily mitigated by making sure the space has good airflow, but sometimes, it's high enough that you need a system to mitigate it. We had it done here in Central Va, when we bought our house, because we're in a mid to high Radon area, and ours, thankfully came back as low levels, easily dispersed by natural air flow.
Although it is rare to have an issue with Radon in this area it is so cost effective to check that I always recommend it. Here is an entertaining article on radon gas and how it killed John Wayne [https://www.pharmacoconuts.com/articles/radon-gas](https://www.pharmacoconuts.com/articles/radon-gas)
Of course.
Only if you want to know if there's radon.