Hi.
Here's my sceanrio.
I live in Southern NH
I have a new house, built in 2003. Colonial, 2 floors, full basement,
attic.

My basement is approx, 30 x 70. The foundation is on a footing that
goes around the entire house.
Down the middle of the house, from 1 end to the other is a footing for
the columns that support the center line of the house.
Under the concrete floor is 2" crushed stone.
My basement has 7' high concrete walls all the way around, the soil
around the house is about 2-3 feet under the top of the basement
walls.

When the house was built, I had them install a radon pipe.
In Feb 2007 I did the ProLab test I got 68 and 70.
The kit has 2 vials. I put them near my furnace in the basement for
the test.
I did the test again a month later and, same reading.
I bought the digital saftey siren radon monitor and put it in the same
location as my lab vials.
The reading maxed at about 36.

I then installed Fantech inline radon fan on the mitigation pipe in
the attic and vented through the roof.
Summer came, house had open windows all summer, monitor reported
usually 4, sometimes as low as .6

Cold weather returned, windows closed and monitor started to go up.
In a week after a memory clear on the monitor, it's gone from 18 to 39
Still in same location as original

First I caulked the entire basement perimiter, cracks and cuts the
contractor put in for expansion.
No improvement.
So, I started to diagnose the fan, I made my own manometer, I shows
about 1.5 - 2" of H2O suction when the fan is on a 2' long pipe and
the pipe end is sealed.
So, it's not the fan.
I then cut the mitigation pipe open about 3" above the slab basement
floor, looked inside, The bottom was clogged with rock and cement.
I chiseled all that out and noticed 1/2 of the pipe was actually
butted up on the footing. So, I chiseled that out, now the fan can
actually pull air under the basement floor.
It then read about 1" on manometer.
A week later, the monitor still read Hi 30s, 38.x usually.

Some neighbors had pros do their homes, and they had a second vent
pipe installed diagonally across the basement, that then hooked up to
the same exhaust pipe to the attic.
So, I figured, OK, go drill a hole over there and do the same.
So, I put 1 1" hole through the floor and noticed that I could hear
wind. If I hold a piece of paper over the hole, it gets sucked in.
If I shut off the fan, no more wind and no more suction.
Thus, it appears to me that the fan is sucking under the entire
floor. I clogged the hole and waited 4 days, same reading 38. I
opened the hole waited a few days, same reading 38ish.

This past weekend, I installed a secondary pipe from this new hole,
all the way to the attic vent pipe and the number is now mid 39.
I now have about 1/2" of H2O on the manometer.

Can anyone tell me how to make this number go down?
I considered the impact of radon in the water, but even if we're gone
for a week, the numbers don't drop. I've tested in rooms higher in
the house, the bathrooms (1/2 the value) , everything has
significantly lower readings than the basement.

So, can anyone offer any insight? Is there not enough vacuum? Is the
problem my basement walls?
Why does it seem like my vent pipe/fan makes no difference.
What do you think the next step should be?

Thanks a million

On Nov 12, 10:32 am, ceh wrote:
Hi.
Here's my sceanrio.
I live in Southern NH
I have a new house, built in 2003. Colonial, 2 floors, full basement,
attic.

My basement is approx, 30 x 70. The foundation is on a footing that
goes around the entire house.
Down the middle of the house, from 1 end to the other is a footing for
the columns that support the center line of the house.
Under the concrete floor is 2" crushed stone.
My basement has 7' high concrete walls all the way around, the soil
around the house is about 2-3 feet under the top of the basement
walls.

When the house was built, I had them install a radon pipe.
In Feb 2007 I did the ProLab test I got 68 and 70.
The kit has 2 vials. I put them near my furnace in the basement for
the test.
I did the test again a month later and, same reading.
I bought the digital saftey siren radon monitor and put it in the same
location as my lab vials.
The reading maxed at about 36.

I then installed Fantech inline radon fan on the mitigation pipe in
the attic and vented through the roof.
Summer came, house had open windows all summer, monitor reported
usually 4, sometimes as low as .6

Cold weather returned, windows closed and monitor started to go up.
In a week after a memory clear on the monitor, it's gone from 18 to 39
Still in same location as original

First I caulked the entire basement perimiter, cracks and cuts the
contractor put in for expansion.
No improvement.
So, I started to diagnose the fan, I made my own manometer, I shows
about 1.5 - 2" of H2O suction when the fan is on a 2' long pipe and
the pipe end is sealed.
So, it's not the fan.
I then cut the mitigation pipe open about 3" above the slab basement
floor, looked inside, The bottom was clogged with rock and cement.
I chiseled all that out and noticed 1/2 of the pipe was actually
butted up on the footing. So, I chiseled that out, now the fan can
actually pull air under the basement floor.
It then read about 1" on manometer.
A week later, the monitor still read Hi 30s, 38.x usually.

Some neighbors had pros do their homes, and they had a second vent
pipe installed diagonally across the basement, that then hooked up to
the same exhaust pipe to the attic.
So, I figured, OK, go drill a hole over there and do the same.
So, I put 1 1" hole through the floor and noticed that I could hear
wind. If I hold a piece of paper over the hole, it gets sucked in.
If I shut off the fan, no more wind and no more suction.
Thus, it appears to me that the fan is sucking under the entire
floor. I clogged the hole and waited 4 days, same reading 38. I
opened the hole waited a few days, same reading 38ish.

This past weekend, I installed a secondary pipe from this new hole,
all the way to the attic vent pipe and the number is now mid 39.
I now have about 1/2" of H2O on the manometer.

Can anyone tell me how to make this number go down?
I considered the impact of radon in the water, but even if we're gone
for a week, the numbers don't drop. I've tested in rooms higher in
the house, the bathrooms (1/2 the value) , everything has
significantly lower readings than the basement.

So, can anyone offer any insight? Is there not enough vacuum? Is the
problem my basement walls?
Why does it seem like my vent pipe/fan makes no difference.
What do you think the next step should be?

Thanks a million

I work in multi-family and have only had 1 building needing radon
prevention. We were required to put in two pipes -- on for air in and
one for air out. The pipes went in a bed of crushed stone with a
plastic layer on top.



View from top, with "i" being intake vents and "o" being vacuum lines.

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
i
i ooooooooooooooo
i o
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii o
i oooo -- to vertical stack with fan.
i ooooooooooooooo
i
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

This washed the entire sub-foundation with clean air and vacuumed out
the radon.

so its only a problem in the winter? what sort of heating system do
you use? is there outside air intake as well as exhaust?

your furnace may be depressurizing your basement sucking radon in.

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:40:26 -0800, "
wrote Re radon problems, sub slab
depressurization doesn't seem to help.:

so its only a problem in the winter? what sort of heating system do
you use? is there outside air intake as well as exhaust?

your furnace may be depressurizing your basement sucking radon in.


That's a good possibility.

I would get an engineer in to thoroughly check the situation. It will
be expensive, but can you put a price on peace of mind?

Haller, Can you please explain how the depressurization happens? thanks.

wrote in message
ups.com...
so its only a problem in the winter? what sort of heating system do
you use? is there outside air intake as well as exhaust?

your furnace may be depressurizing your basement sucking radon in.

On Nov 12, 7:40 pm, " wrote:
so its only a problem in the winter? what sort of heating system do
you use? is there outside air intake as well as exhaust?

your furnace may be depressurizing your basement suckingradonin.

No outside air intake.
The house was built in 2003, it has a large 2 zone furnace / ac unit.
The air is pulled back to the furnace via numerous returns in the
house floors.

There is an exhaust that blows outside. and a condensation drain that
goes outside.

On Dec 6, 3:24 pm, ceh wrote:
On Nov 12, 7:40 pm, " wrote:

so its only a problem in the winter? what sort of heating system do
you use? is there outside air intake as well as exhaust?

your furnace may be depressurizing your basement suckingradonin.

No outside air intake.
The house was built in 2003, it has a large 2 zone furnace / ac unit.
The air is pulled back to the furnace via numerous returns in the
house floors.

There is an exhaust that blows outside. and a condensation drain that
goes outside.

yeah two issues..

make sure the there are no open RETURN ducts or other unexpected
openings in the return ducts that will lower the pressure in the
basmement.. this is due to the conditioed air system pulling air..

the second issue is the Combustion air, the furnace needs air to feed
the fire, you may want to insatll a drey vent that will work in
reverse to allow a source of outside air to flow in to feed the
combustion air to the furnace.

Does running the furnane and or air handler impact hte pressure in
your basement.

Mark

How would I know if the furnace was changing the pressure? I'd
probably need a pretty sensitive pressure gauge of some sort right?

I hear you on the pressure issues. I'll try to inspect.

Thanks for the advice.