Episode 1923
Dallas Jones on Radon: What You Should Know Before You Breathe
Radon gas might sound like a villain from a sci-fi flick, but it’s all too real and lurking in many homes, waiting to wreak havoc on our lungs. In this chat, Eric G hangs out with radon guru Dallas Jones, who spills the beans on why this sneaky radioactive gas is a top contender for lung cancer risk. We’re diving deep into the nitty-gritty of radon: how it creeps into our homes, why you should care, and, most importantly, how to kick it to the curb safely. Whether you're renovating, buying, or just living your best life in your home, we’ve got the scoop on radon testing and mitigation measures that actually work. So, grab your favorite drink, kick back, and let’s make sure your castle is radon-free!
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Imagine sitting down with Eric G and Dallas Jones to chat about something that could be lurking in your basement, completely undetected—radon gas. This episode is like a masterclass in radon awareness, as Dallas, a seasoned expert in the field, dives headfirst into the nitty-gritty of why we should care about this radioactive gas. From the science behind its formation to its dangerous potential for causing lung cancer, they spell out the risks in an engaging way that’s both informative and entertaining. It’s not just a lecture; it’s a lively conversation that feels like you're hanging out with friends while learning about serious stuff.
Dallas breaks down the complexities of radon testing, explaining why a simple two-day test might not be enough to give a complete picture of radon levels in your home. With a sprinkle of humor, he sheds light on the importance of continuous monitoring and how modern technology can help homeowners keep track of radon levels over time. Eric and Dallas share anecdotes from the field, addressing misconceptions and empowering listeners to take proactive measures in protecting their homes.
The episode culminates in a compelling discussion about the necessity of radon mitigation systems, detailing how they work to keep our homes safe. With Dallas's expertise, listeners gain insight into the practical steps they can take to ensure their living spaces are radon-free. The energetic dialogue wraps up with a call to action, reminding everyone that knowledge is power, especially when it comes to safeguarding our health against this invisible enemy.
Takeaways:
- Radon gas is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless radioactive gas that poses serious health risks, including increased lung cancer risk, especially in homes with high indoor concentrations.
- The EPA recommends that if your home tests at 4 picocuries per liter or above, you should definitely take action to mitigate the radon levels to protect your family.
- Even if your initial radon test shows low levels, it's wise to perform periodic testing, as radon levels can fluctuate based on various environmental factors throughout the year.
- Having a radon mitigation system installed is not a one-and-done deal; regular monitoring is key to ensuring it continues to function effectively over time.
- New construction homes often have radon-resistant features, but homeowners should still test for radon and not rely solely on construction claims.
- For peace of mind, consider investing in a continuous radon monitor, which can track radon levels in real-time, helping you stay informed about your indoor air quality.
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:It'S around the House on this.
Speaker A:Episode of around the House.
Speaker A:But lots of residential studies not just in the United States but all over the world that it has a direct connection to increased risk of lung cancer.
Speaker A:So the four picocurie per liter action level here in the United States was not set because it was considered to be a safe point.
Speaker A:It was years ago when they at that it was considered to be an achievable concentration that our mitigation technology could consistently reduce levels to below 4 picocuries per liter.
Speaker B:When it comes to remodeling or renovating.
Speaker A:Your home, there is a lot to.
Speaker B:Know and we have got you covered.
Speaker A:This is AROUND the house.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Round the House show, the next generation of home improvement.
Speaker B:I'm Eric G.
Speaker B:Thanks for joining me today.
Speaker B:This hour is brought to you by our friends at Monte McGrills.
Speaker B:Check them out at monument grills.com now we had a request that came in asking about radon and it's something that we haven't talked about in this show for a couple years.
Speaker B:And they were right.
Speaker B:We were missing something.
Speaker B:And you know something, I brought in one of the leading experts out there, if not the leading expert in my opinion and my friends in the industry, Dallas Jones.
Speaker B:Welcome to around the House brother.
Speaker A:Thanks for having me, man.
Speaker B:You are one of the gurus out there because you have been doing this and really leading the charge with getting people to pay attention to this radioactive gas that nobody can see, smell or just notice around their home.
Speaker A:It's been a long time.
Speaker A: gy and businesses since about: Speaker A:A lot of experience.
Speaker B:No kidding.
Speaker B:And in Oregon, where I live here, for instance, and this is what really gets homeowners and the show goes across the country, but in our area here, as part of a real estate sale, you have to have radon testing as part of the closing process.
Speaker B:So that is it, which is cool.
Speaker B:But the problem is we don't really have a great industry here.
Speaker B:Nobody knows if it's good.
Speaker B:Nobody can give any promises if it's going to work.
Speaker B:And so homeowners, at least in my area, and this is where I, I think this came from, get very confused about what is radon, will a mitigation system work and how do you know if it's working?
Speaker A:Mitigation systems do work and but they have to be verified that they're working and you can't just assume once they're installed they're going to work on and on year after year, part of the issue is, with a real estate transaction, we're limited to a very short time window.
Speaker A:The home inspector and the buyer has a certain period that they're allowed to inspect the house.
Speaker A:And so the radon test is just for two or three days, typically.
Speaker A:And while if it's done properly and it's done without any tampering or cheating on behalf of, say, a seller or an agent, then it.
Speaker A:It can be a good test for that time period.
Speaker A:But radon fluctuates from day to night, from season to season, and you're just getting a very short time window for that test.
Speaker A:If it comes back elevated, then you can be reasonably assured that it's a wise move to go ahead and get it mitigated.
Speaker A:But if it doesn't come back elevated, you can't necessarily conclude that it isn't elevated other times of the year.
Speaker A:It's good if you have the ability to.
Speaker A:To monitor over a longer period.
Speaker B:Makes sense.
Speaker B:Makes sense.
Speaker B: when I was buying it back in: Speaker B:They had the.
Speaker B:They had a bathroom fan had been left on accidentally, I think.
Speaker B:I'm not putting anybody in there, but I'm like, okay, that could skew the test.
Speaker B:So I turned it off.
Speaker B:And you think about it, especially when you start getting into newer homes that have lots of ventilation or new homes that have ERVs, HRVs, all these different things that are moving air around.
Speaker B:It can be doing things like sucking up, creating a vacuum inside the house, or putting a pressure, which could always change that, it seems.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's the pressure relationship between the house and the soil that allows radon entry to begin with.
Speaker A:Soil gases are typically drawn into the house because the air pressure inside is a little lower than it is in the ground.
Speaker A:And so those gases are being sucked into any.
Speaker A:Any crack or crevice or hole or whatever to up into the living space.
Speaker A:And that's made worse at certain times of day, depending on the temperature outside versus inside.
Speaker A:Certain times of year, depending on the same thing.
Speaker A:Or we have warm weather, cold weather, what's the temperature difference between in and out?
Speaker A:And then things like you mentioned exhaust fans.
Speaker A:So there's this stack effect that is pulling air up from below and exhausting it where it can at the top.
Speaker A:And all of that can pull soil gases in.
Speaker A:With a mitigation system, what we're trying to do is reverse that airflow so they typically install what's called an active soil depressurization system.
Speaker A:And they suck air from underneath the house with a pipe.
Speaker A:It's a PVC pipe, typically, and an inline centrifugal fan.
Speaker A:And it's pulling air out from underneath the building and creating a low pressure zone underneath the footprint.
Speaker A:So that way, any cracks and openings that you can't see or get to the air is moving from the house down rather than from the ground in.
Speaker A:And if you can maintain that, then you've got a good system.
Speaker A:The part of the issue with just assuming that a mitigation system is working is let's say you have the test done in the spring or the fall when the weather's kind of mild and they, they come and do a mitigation, they put in the system, they do a short two or three day test after the installation, and it looks good for that time period.
Speaker A:And that's because it's maintaining that lower pressure underneath during the time of the test.
Speaker A:But then let's say cold weather, winter comes along and you start to turn on the heat and the temperature between inside and out is greater, then perhaps that system can be overwhelmed by the, the stack effect in the house during that time of year.
Speaker A:It may not be working so well.
Speaker A:So it's really good to have the ability to continuously mon.
Speaker A:And the great thing is today there are devices out there that are very sophisticated and affordable for homeowners to have that they can monitor their radon over time, either whether it's before they have mitigation to see whether they need to take action at all, or whether it's after mitigation to make sure the system is working.
Speaker B:That makes sense.
Speaker B:And that's a great idea because let's say you put a system in and something happens and you get a crack on the other side of the house from the mitigation system in the concrete floor.
Speaker B:Let's say something happens, you get a crack, then all of a sudden maybe that's not pulling all the way over there because especially when things are retrofitted many times they, they didn't plan for a mitigation system.
Speaker B:So there's at best some gravel, hopefully, and concrete.
Speaker B:I've seen them pour it right on dirt and hard to create a vacuum when it's dirt on the concrete.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You have to be, you have to be a little more conscious of your, of how to create that vacuum when you don't have gravel.
Speaker A:For example.
Speaker A:I live in north Georgia in the north Atlanta area, and a lot of the older houses are built on red clay, same kind of thing.
Speaker A:And it's not very susceptible to airflow unless you find where you can get airflow.
Speaker A:For example, around the footings at the perimeter.
Speaker A:They dug out and then they back filled to pour those footings.
Speaker A:And oftentimes there'll be some settling underneath the slab over time.
Speaker A:So then if you can put your suction points on those along those walls where you can take advantage of that airspace, then you can, you can extend that pressure field down to the opposite corners.
Speaker A:Sometimes it takes multiple suction points in order to do that.
Speaker A:Makes sense.
Speaker A:If you were to, if you were to talk to people who tested during mitigation, I bet you could, or excuse me, tested during their real estate purchase, when they bought their home and they had a mitigation system put in.
Speaker A:Or even if they didn't, they tested during that time, they tested after the mitigation.
Speaker A:Things came back looking good for that two day test.
Speaker A:And they forget about radon.
Speaker A:Sure, I'm done with it.
Speaker A:And it could be 20 years later and they still think everything's just fine.
Speaker A:And like you mentioned, there's so many things that can cause changes in the structure.
Speaker A:Earthquake activity.
Speaker A:There's a huge one, right?
Speaker A:Blasting.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, blasting.
Speaker A:Because there's construction going on nearby and they're doing blasting.
Speaker A:Or you have extended period of unusual drought or you decide to put in a new heating and air conditioning system which can have an impact.
Speaker A:Or you do some renovations.
Speaker B:Yeah, some pumps in the basement can change things, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Or you have to dig out because of the, the plumbing coming in from the street is, is old and yet they have to replace it.
Speaker A:So they trench and, and backfill and maybe there, now there's a new entryway.
Speaker A:So all those things can cause changes and if you don't keep an eye on it, then you just never know.
Speaker B:So really for most people it's just smart to, if you've got a system, make sure that you have somebody coming out to maintain it and take a look at it.
Speaker B:But really self testing seems to be the way to, to have it safe.
Speaker B:Is there really a safe radon level?
Speaker B:I know there's, you should mitigate at this point.
Speaker B:But is it like anything else that's bad?
Speaker B:You probably shouldn't have any.
Speaker B:If you can get away with it.
Speaker A:It's difficult to not have any because there's a little background right.
Speaker A:On concentration, even outside.
Speaker A:The reason it's not harmful outside is because it comes out of the soil and dilutes into the atmosphere rapidly and we're not breathing much of that at all.
Speaker A:But when it can get into the house, it can build up to a level that we're breathing.
Speaker A:And it's been demonstrated over and over again with not just minor studies, but lots of residential studies, not just in the United States, but all over the world that it has a direct connection to increased risk of lung cancer.
Speaker A:So the four picocurie per liter action level here in the United States was not set because it was considered to be a safe point.
Speaker A:It was years ago when they EPA set that it was considered to be an achievable concentration that our mitigation technology could consistently reduce levels to below 4 picocuries per liter.
Speaker A:But they'll tell you when they look at the epidemiology data that there's a sizable portion of these lung cancers that occur to exposures of less than 4 picocuries per liter.
Speaker A:Any reduction is in the concentration is reduction in risk.
Speaker A:If you read the EPA guidance carefully, it'll say if you test your home and the concentrations on average are 4 picocuries per liter or higher, fix the home.
Speaker A:If it's between 2 and 4 picocuries per liter, consider fixing the home.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:If you're a, if you're a home buyer and you're negotiating with the seller and the concentrations are between 2 and 4, you may not be able to negotiate having them mitigate the house at their expense.
Speaker A:But you, you may really want to take a look at it over a longer period of time and see whether you want to go ahead and mitigate it for the health and well being of your family.
Speaker B:Yeah, good point.
Speaker B:Good point.
Speaker B:Because really that should be your.
Speaker B:Probably your next renovation on your brand new house is just making sure that it's safe because.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And in my area here in, across the country, it's always interesting when I watch some of the maps out there and I'm not going to name any ones, but I see ones that are, this is red, this is orange, this is yellow.
Speaker B:And in my area I'm between the orange and red depending.
Speaker B:And it's county by county, which it doesn't really tell you much, but at least it says, hey, you should be testing in this area.
Speaker B:But really everywhere you run a risks, don't you?
Speaker B:At least that's my opinion.
Speaker B:I'm curious to see what your professional opinion is.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's a good point, Eric.
Speaker A: map, for example, came out in: Speaker A:For everybody to look at.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of radon test data at the time.
Speaker A:So they used an algorithm that included a lot of factors, not just radon data.
Speaker A:It included housing types.
Speaker A:It included aerial radiation mapping, like the military does when they just fly over and measure the radiation coming off the ground.
Speaker A:It included multiple factors that they put into this formula to help predict where it would be most likely to have elevated radon concentrations over time.
Speaker A: e radon data than they did in: Speaker A:But there are exceptions.
Speaker A:And even if.
Speaker A:Even with that map, if you look at the fine print at the bottom, it says that the map was not intended for you to decide whether or not you should test.
Speaker A:It was intended to help focus resources to the areas of most concern first and then work their way down.
Speaker A: ent years, Starting in around: Speaker A:And they did away with the zone map distinctions and said, okay, we need to do this anywhere, because an elevated concentration could show up.
Speaker A:And there are states that, if you look at that map, are not red and orange, they're more of that yellow area like Texas and California.
Speaker A:And yet now they've been testing these multifamily projects, and guess what?
Speaker A:They're finding radon in Texas and California.
Speaker A:It's real easy to say there's no radon in certain areas when there are no tests going on.
Speaker A:Once you start testing, you find buildings and residences that are elevated.
Speaker A:The only way to know is to test.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just a year ago here in my metro area, here in.
Speaker B:In the Portland metro area, we had a fire department that had to close because of extreme radon.
Speaker B:That was in the fire department because they tested it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And there have been.
Speaker A:There was a prison up in the northeast that they discovered that all the inmates were on the ground level were getting exposed to some very high concentrations of radon.
Speaker A:So the more you look for it, the more you're going to find the good news is it's easy and for the most part, and fairly inexpensive to mitigate.
Speaker A:And as long as you mitigate and then keep an eye on that mitigation to make sure it continues to work, then that's one of the health concerns that you just don't need to worry about anymore.
Speaker A:You've got it under control, and you're keeping an eye on it.
Speaker A:In some areas of the country, it could be that way.
Speaker A:Perhaps in Oregon.
Speaker A:I know it's that way.
Speaker A:Here in the Southeast, we've got a humid climate in the summer, for example, and a lot of lower levels.
Speaker A:Whether it's a basement or over a crawl space or even slab on grade, you're getting moisture coming in from the soil as well.
Speaker A:And that can contribute to that indoor humidity.
Speaker A:And the soil depressurization systems not only can keep the radon from entering, they'll keep that moisture and other soil gases from entering the home.
Speaker A:The technology that we use for radon mitigation is being used all over the country now, actually all over the world for vapor intrusion mitigation for chemical vapors.
Speaker A:It's the same exact technology.
Speaker A:They're putting it in large buildings from the very beginning when they built construct them on these sites that were.
Speaker A:Perhaps they were gas stations at one.
Speaker B:Time or they were.
Speaker A:They manufactured various things.
Speaker A:Just right up from me, there's an old General Motors assembly plant that sat empty for a long time because they didn't know they could build anything on it because it was such a contaminated site.
Speaker A:They finally cleared everything off and they installed the soil depressurization systems in all the buildings to prevent vapors from coming in.
Speaker A:And now it's become a large movie studio set.
Speaker B:All right, I know which one you're talking about.
Speaker B:Yeah, very cool.
Speaker B:And that's amazing.
Speaker B:And I'm seeing that more.
Speaker B:And I wish we could get the new construction building community out there to think about prepping the ground before they pour that slab on grade.
Speaker B:I watch in Phoenix, for instance, I had a buddy that I worked with in the radio industry.
Speaker B:He built a house down there.
Speaker B:And he's up, concrete's pouring and the truck's there, and they're pouring right over the top of the desert earth.
Speaker B:And it's just what they do there.
Speaker B:That is the common practice.
Speaker B:But in my head I'm going, that's gonna be pretty tough to mitigate that because it's a slab on grade and just a monopour.
Speaker B:And I'm like, that's really not gonna.
Speaker B:Really not going to give you a lot of options if you had an issue down the road.
Speaker A:There was, there were.
Speaker A:There was a time when we thought that the best thing to do was to put gravel underneath the slab.
Speaker A:And that's still a great idea.
Speaker A:And to make sure that you've got some connection between any footings from one section to the next where you can draw air across the footprint with your suction.
Speaker A:There are sites where they're putting these systems in and then they're testing the building after.
Speaker A:And if they need to, then they activate the systems by putting in line fans and all that's good.
Speaker A:But they also have a vapor matting which is sandwiched together where it allows air to be drawn through it.
Speaker A:And they can put that down as well in areas where perhaps gravel isn't as readily available and they can roll this out and do the same sort of thing.
Speaker A:It's all very doable.
Speaker A:And you're right, it's frustrating sometimes that it's just not a matter of practice everywhere but the building codes.
Speaker A:I was the executive director of the American association of Radon Scientists and Technologists for a number of years and, and we were really working, trying to get the building codes updated and accepted across the country to include this kind of process.
Speaker A:But it's a slow process.
Speaker A:You get little wins and.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker A:And you're grateful for when you get a win.
Speaker A:So it's.
Speaker A:Now there is an opportunity, but it's not a requirement.
Speaker A:That's the problem.
Speaker B:Would it be as simple as just putting in a massive glued together sheet of vapor barrier that would not allow that through underneath it?
Speaker A:That was tried actually years ago.
Speaker A:And the problem is I tried to put that in and then you have the workers there putting their.
Speaker A:Walking across the bar and they're walking across it and all the things they do.
Speaker A:You just can't keep them barrier, try as you may.
Speaker A:It sounds good on paper, but reads well on paper.
Speaker A:Sounds good in conversation, but it just doesn't work in practice.
Speaker B:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker B:I want to shift over because I've seen this happen.
Speaker B:I want to.
Speaker B:I'm just, I'm not sure how common it is, but I have, I've seen people that have wells that have radon in their water.
Speaker B:Is that something that you deal with a lot?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's not as.
Speaker A:As common.
Speaker A:Obviously there aren't as many people across the country that have their, that they're drinking water sources from a well.
Speaker A:But if you're on a private well, there's certainly the potential the radon can be.
Speaker A:Can become somewhat soluble in the water.
Speaker A:And then you bring the water in from the well and then it aerates as you're taking a shower or you're running, washing dishes or washing clothes, whatever, then the gas comes out.
Speaker A:And if you were monitoring that, you could see no water usage.
Speaker A:Radar concentrations might be low and then up.
Speaker A:Now the laundry starts and the radon spikes up real high and then it takes a while to come back down.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Take a shower.
Speaker A:Same sort of thing.
Speaker A:So it's certainly something that has to be dealt with in a lot of areas.
Speaker A:I know a lot of mitigators deal with that up in the northeast part of the United States, but that's not the only place.
Speaker A:Yeah, it can show up anywhere.
Speaker A:If you're on a well, a private well, then it's really good to also be conscious that if you test for radon in air, you should do that first.
Speaker A:If you find an elevated concentration there, then you should also check out your water.
Speaker A:Just the exception to that is if you're testing the house for radon and air and no one's living there and they're not using the water, then you would miss the well.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:If there's no real life stuff going on, then that could be a problem.
Speaker B:Makes sense.
Speaker B:So I had that same listener, Beth, who wrote in.
Speaker B:She'd asked about it.
Speaker B:Is it common that you see out there that radon companies don't guarantee that they can reduce the radon level by putting in a mitigation system?
Speaker B:Is that something common?
Speaker B:I don't want to get into the he said, she said and bashing contractors, but I know that's a concern for people.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I would say to homeowners to be sure and read contracts and make sure you ask that question, just what are you going to do?
Speaker A:What is the deliverable for what I'm paying you?
Speaker A:And there will be situations.
Speaker A:Perhaps.
Speaker A:I'll give you an example.
Speaker A:Let's say the house is multiple foundation type.
Speaker A:You have a basement section.
Speaker A:You have an adjacent crawl space and maybe even a little slab on grade area.
Speaker A:Then perhaps the mitigator will give you a quote on doing the work that would address that basement and not address the crawl space or the adjacent slab and not guarantee and say, let's see whether this works or not.
Speaker A:If it doesn't work, then we need to move to phase two and three.
Speaker A:So that can happen.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:But there are, unfortunately, like any business, there are contractors that even on a relatively simple mitigation, may not guarantee.
Speaker A:So I would always ask.
Speaker A:Yeah, up front.
Speaker B:That's when you start asking questions.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:That's when you start asking questions.
Speaker B:Well, I love talking with you about this because I'm learning a lot here too, which means everybody out in the audience is learning as well.
Speaker B:What do you think about.
Speaker B:There's been a big trend now with people worried about healthy air, which is great.
Speaker B:That's probably the good thing that came out of the whole Covid thing is people started paying attention to what they're breathing.
Speaker B:And hats off for us learning something out of that, but I'm seeing more encapsulated crawl spaces and things like that.
Speaker B:How does that affect radon if it's done correctly?
Speaker B:And there's a big asterisk there, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Let's.
Speaker A:Let me answer that in two ways.
Speaker A:First of all, the encapsulated crawl spaces, it.
Speaker A:That is part of a radon mitigation system for a house that's on an earth crawl space.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:But if you don't depressurize underneath that barrier that you put down, then there is no way to completely make that house sealed from the soil.
Speaker A:Regardless of how pretty it looks, there is basically radon is going to build up underneath that barrier and find somehow to come in at higher concentrations and be drawn up into the living space above.
Speaker A:More and more of the crawl space encapsulation companies are incorporating radon mitigation into their systems.
Speaker A:The best way to do that is if you want to have a crawl space encapsulated, test your home for radon first.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:And, and.
Speaker A:And then make sure that they go ahead and address the radon while they're encapsulating the crawl space.
Speaker A:It will make the air quality in your house so much better.
Speaker A:And address the radon at the same time in the southeast.
Speaker A:And, and I know it's in other places a lot of times the air handlers and the ductwork are down in that nasty crawl space.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And there's all sorts of opportunities for mold and other contaminants to be, you know, that moisture and to be drawn up into the living area.
Speaker A:So I encourage people to.
Speaker A:To do that.
Speaker A:But there are encapsulation companies out there who have not been trained on radon and don't think about it and don't want to get into the.
Speaker A:The extra.
Speaker A:We need to test first before we come out and make sure whether to include that.
Speaker A:So ask those questions.
Speaker A:One other thing you reminded me of that when you're talking about builders, a lot of times there are jurisdictions where they require, I like to call it radon ready new construction features.
Speaker A:Originally they called them radon resistant, which is basically what you were talking about.
Speaker A:Putting the gravel bed and maybe a well point with a suction pipe that can come up, but they don't have a fan.
Speaker A:And so the builders will advertise.
Speaker A:Oh, we took radon measures in the construction, but people are Misled into thinking they don't need to test.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:You need to make sure that regardless of what the builder tells you about what they've done to resist radon in the construction that you test before you purchase, where you will know whether you need to activate that fan or activate that system.
Speaker A:And unfortunately, there's no requirement that the builder have any training on how they put in that skeletal system.
Speaker A:So there are situations where when the mitigator comes out to activate the fan, if they've tested that, they.
Speaker A:They have to abandon the pipe because it just wasn't installed in a way where they can use it.
Speaker A:So then they need to tap into a different place.
Speaker A:So the whole idea is to make it less expensive to fix.
Speaker A:It's not going to necessarily prevent any radon from entering.
Speaker B:Good.
Speaker B:That is just so important right there.
Speaker B:And to be honest, if the builder is on their game and they're at least doing that, which hats off to the builder for making that first step, but that also tells you that enough people have probably brought this up in the area, then it's already a concern.
Speaker B:So there's your first warning light of, hey, take it seriously.
Speaker B:Because the builder's going, hey, we gotta take this seriously.
Speaker B:By at least prepping it, because we've got a lot of people asking about it, which is awesome.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:So that's cool.
Speaker B:All right, man.
Speaker B:I'm learning so much with this because it's just such an evolving science and it's one of those things that it's.
Speaker B:You jump online and this is one of the things.
Speaker B:And I laugh and almost cry at the same time.
Speaker B:But we'll do a radon episode.
Speaker B:The last one we did probably three or four years ago, where I had some people in and talking about it and, oh, the hate mail I got, which I don't care, but this is fake science.
Speaker B:And the story.
Speaker B:You probably run into that every day, but I was just like, yes.
Speaker B:Oh, great, we got flat earthers commenting on science again.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker A:Yeah, it is frustrating when you have an opportunity to meet people.
Speaker A:And I meet them every week, almost find out about them, hear about them, or get a chance to actually talk to them who have lung cancer, who never smoked, who are often quite young, and they're asking the question, how did I get lung cancer?
Speaker A:I stayed away from cigarettes.
Speaker A:I wasn't around secondhand smoke, what happened?
Speaker A:And they're curious.
Speaker A:They want to know that even though it's there in that situation, they want to find out, is my family at risk, my.
Speaker A:My children, my parents and they began to test the house they grew up in, if they still have access or the house they're living in, and they start to put things together.
Speaker A:If you talk to colleges who deal with lung cancer, they'll tell you this is real stuff.
Speaker A:So I hope that we're moving past that point that this is all nonsense, it's easy to disregard or because you can't see it and taste it and smell it, but it's there, it's radiation.
Speaker A:And that radiation can definitely do harm to your lung cells.
Speaker B:There is a story over on the American Lung association page.
Speaker B:These people live a half lived, I'll say, half mile from me.
Speaker B:And they did exactly that.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:I remember reading the news story, so I might have the numbers off here wrong guys, because it's been a number of years since I've looked at it.
Speaker B:But I believe he was 45, died from stage four lung cancer, had never smoked a day in his life.
Speaker B:And if I remember right, and there's an asterisk here, I thought the number was like 10 or 12 in the house.
Speaker B:And we have had more than one couple here in my neighborhood that have died from it.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:So it's very real.
Speaker B:It's happened down the street.
Speaker B:And, and what I think is interesting too is depending on how the house was built, you can go down the house and test all the way down the street and you can get 12 houses and 12 readings.
Speaker A:Very different.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:You can have a house that's extremely high and two houses that are very low and then another house that's high.
Speaker A:The other thing on new houses, there are those houses now that have perhaps additional mechanical ventilation with their hrv.
Speaker A:But there are also a lot of new construction where they made the house very tight for as far as insulation and air sealing for energy efficiency, but they didn't add in mechanical ventilation.
Speaker A:So they're out there, a lot of them.
Speaker A:And as we've made our houses tighter, then we're continuing to build houses at a high.
Speaker A:With radon problems at a higher rate, then we can mitigate.
Speaker A:So it's an ongoing problem and I.
Speaker B:See some issues in parts of the country and I've noticed this with the.
Speaker B:To go back for a second on the crawl space encapsulation companies here in my area, the tendency is as they put in to control humidity down there, they'll put a dehumidifier in.
Speaker B:But I have seen in other parts of the country where it's really common for them to go, oh, I'm just going to add another duct down here, and that way we get the air movement so we don't have the stale air.
Speaker B:And we're just going to add.
Speaker B:We already got the ducts here anyway.
Speaker B:We're just going to have an H Vac person input a duct and a return air down here real quick because it's already in the place, we'll get it.
Speaker B:So that's swapping the air out.
Speaker B:It's just going to be a conditioned space.
Speaker B:But in my mind, I go, if you're not dealing with radon, you're just injecting that right into the freeway, into your house.
Speaker B:If you're doing it that way, particularly.
Speaker A:If you've got supplies and returns, if you've got a return in the crawl space and that return is leaky in any way, then every time it's drawing air back to the furnace, it's drawing air from the crawl space through whatever leaks in that ductwork.
Speaker A:And so you could very well do that and see the radon concentrations go up in the living area.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:For years I did training for energy efficiency and building performance and the saying that they start out in Building Performance 101 is the house is a system.
Speaker A:Everything is interrelated.
Speaker A:So you go in and do one thing, and if you're not thinking about what does this one thing do to the other systems in the house, then you could end up causing more problems than you're solving.
Speaker A:So you have to think of the whole picture.
Speaker B:And that's why they call it building science these days, because it is a science that is evolving.
Speaker B: look how far we've come from: Speaker B:And now we're just starting to get that ship righted again with these new homes.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:Hopefully, as we move forward, communities are beginning to take radon more seriously.
Speaker A:There are jurisdictions where they are requiring builders to put in resistant new construction for radon.
Speaker A:But there's still a lot of education to do.
Speaker A:The good news is also we have the ability now to monitor our homes affordably.
Speaker A:You can go to our website or to Amazon and you can find radon monitors that you can purchase and track the radon in your home and keep an eye on it.
Speaker A:They're good to have because not only can they give you peace of mind, that can certainly alert you to what's happening.
Speaker A:I had a conversation with a homeowner in Utah when it first turned cold weather this fall, and she had a radon test done when she purchased the home.
Speaker A:And the concentrations were just under 4.
Speaker A:So it was about 3.7, something like that.
Speaker A:But she purchased one of our continuous monitors, and she was watching it go up every night after she started to use the heat.
Speaker A:And it would get up to about 9 cures per liter at night.
Speaker A:And then in the day, she would go to work and it would go on economizer setback, and it would fall down to around two and stay low until she came home.
Speaker A:And when the heat would start to run after she came home, it would rise up.
Speaker A:So she showed this.
Speaker A:This sent me the data from her monitor, and it was just every night.
Speaker A:And so her average could very well have been just under four.
Speaker A:But when it was low, she was at work.
Speaker A:Yeah, when it was high, she was home sleeping in her bed.
Speaker B:She was on the wrong side of that average.
Speaker A:Oh, exactly.
Speaker B:Okay, so I'm gonna go to get eight hours sleep, and I'm gonna have eight hours nine then.
Speaker B:And when I brush my teeth in the morning and jump in the car, it's at 2.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's not good.
Speaker A:That's not good.
Speaker B:So guess what I'm doing after this episode here?
Speaker B:I'm going to jump on and get some.
Speaker B:Because, full honesty, guys.
Speaker B:I have air quality monitors in my ass.
Speaker B:I can tell you what my PM 2.5 is.
Speaker B:I can tell you what my humidity is and what all this other stuff is.
Speaker B:Carbon dioxide.
Speaker B:All so radon.
Speaker B:So I gotta fix that.
Speaker B:There's my.
Speaker B:There's my hole in the shield right now that I need to take a look at.
Speaker B:And I don't have a system in my house because we were under two when I did mine.
Speaker B:So I went, all right, that was pretty good.
Speaker B:But I look out every day when I walk out the door, I look at my neighbor's system on the side of their house.
Speaker B:So it's to pay attention to that.
Speaker B:Need to pay attention to that.
Speaker B:So if people don't want to put their own monitors in, they're just like, hey, I want to have a pro do it.
Speaker B:And I'm going to forget about it because I'm not a techie person.
Speaker B:When should they be?
Speaker B:How often should they be retesting to make sure Whether they have a system or not, what would you recommend?
Speaker A:The EPA says that if you tested and it was below the action level, you should retest every five years.
Speaker A:Now if you have a mitigation system, they say you should retest every two years.
Speaker A:That said, when that recommendation was made, the only logical way for a homeowner to test or affordable way for a homeowner to test would be with a passive time integrating device like a charcoal canister, perhaps an alpha track device that they could leave out for you know, three months or more.
Speaker A:But they just give you a one number average.
Speaker A:They're not going to give you the ups and downs that I just described.
Speaker A:They're so affordable.
Speaker A:For example, we've got units that you can purchase that you can track hourly data as well as the day, week, month and the year and they're 50 bucks.
Speaker B:Oh wow.
Speaker B:So it's cheaper than having somebody come out and do it.
Speaker B:You can buy the machine and just leave it there so you don't even have to have the pro come out and do it and take that snapshot.
Speaker B:So wow, that's a no brainer to me.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:And guys, I want to warn something here too and I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to put my flag on this one.
Speaker B:Be careful what you buy on Amazon because oh my gosh, I tell you what, I did a, for my TV show I did a, I did a thing called let's Test it.
Speaker B:So I jumped on, I went, I'm gonna buy a portable carbon monoxide detector.
Speaker B:And I went around and said okay, wow.000.
Speaker B:I went in front of my diesel SUV and held it in front of the exhaust on it and it showed zero.
Speaker B:And I'm like that's broken.
Speaker A:Yes, that's a very good point Eric.
Speaker A:Unfortunately, with our company we make professional devices and homeowner devices that are evaluated and I'm proud of the products we sell.
Speaker A:But there are units that have been copied in China that look very similar to ours and we're not the only reputable company out, but there's some out out there that you could, you could, you could purchase and they haven't been evaluated.
Speaker A:They may have reverse engineered something but they've missed some really key components or factors that make a difference and there's no regulation on them.
Speaker A:So yes, you do need to be careful there.
Speaker B:Every good product that I have tested out there, that was the first one.
Speaker B:Whether it's a vise, whether it's a knife sharpening tool and if it's 200 bucks for that thing.
Speaker B:If you jump over six months later on Amazon, there is an exact copy of it for 39.99.
Speaker B:And I know the owners of these things because they were the inventors that came on my show, and the raw materials to make it were twice what they're selling it for, which tells you someone's still got to make money.
Speaker B:So it's not the same.
Speaker B:So very careful.
Speaker B:That is.
Speaker B:That is like going into the swap meet and buying knockoff clothing parts there.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:You got to be really careful what you buy.
Speaker A:Yes, exactly.
Speaker B:So, Dallas, what have we missed today?
Speaker B:I know we got to wrap up.
Speaker B:We have burned through an hour of the show here.
Speaker B:What did we miss?
Speaker B:And, of course, we want to make sure to how to find you, because there's a lot of people out there that probably want to buy some of these so they can be watching their own home.
Speaker A:I think the important thing is remember that radon is a radioactive gas.
Speaker A:It's real.
Speaker A:It's important to pay attention to it.
Speaker A:I say it's also important to keep an eye on it rather than just test once and then think you're done.
Speaker A:That would be the key messages I would like to make sure your listeners are taking away.
Speaker A:My company is called EcoSense.
Speaker A:Our website is EcoSense IO.
Speaker A:We have.
Speaker A:If you go to our website, we have devices that are for consumers, and we have devices that are for professionals.
Speaker A:And if you go there, I can assure you that the sensors and the technology that we're using are very good.
Speaker A:And I think once you get one and begin to keep an eye on your radon, you'll learn, really, the kinds of things, your activities and times of year and what kind of things will cause your radon to go up and cause it to go down, and you'll have a much better understanding as to whether you need to take action or you're more comfortable taking action or whether you can feel real good that your home doesn't have that concern for the price.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I would say it's worth it.
Speaker A:Lung cancer is ugly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's the cheapest insurance against that type of lung cancer you can buy for 150 bucks.
Speaker B:Come on.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:That is awesome.
Speaker B:Dallas Jones, thanks, man, for coming on today.
Speaker B:I want to jump on again in the future so we can dive deeper into this as well.
Speaker B:But thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to jump on and help educate everyone.
Speaker B:I appreciate it.
Speaker A:My pleasure.
Speaker A:Thanks for having me.
Speaker B:All right, guys.
Speaker B:I'm Eric G.
Speaker B:And you've been listening to around the House.
