Random (non-Jeep) Shit You’re Working On....

If you guys want some concrete porn, there's a guy on YouTube. ODell complete concrete. He films all his projects and does voice over narration. He has this calm voice and is easy to listen to. His projects are badass. From a simple driveway add-on to a full custom project. Fun stuff.
 
We found unexpected trouble in paradise with our Arizona mountain home. The problem is excessive Radon. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer.

There is hardly any data (or awareness) about Radon in the sparsely populated county. When the EPA did its nation-wide Radon testing in the early 90's they may have only sent kits to about ten homes in the whole huge county.

I bought an Airthings air quality monitor and installed it in the living area of the house. It is on Wi-Fi so I can monitor remotely.

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The air quality monitor detected Radon! I then bought a cheaper Airthings monitor (also with Radon support) and installed it in the garage. It uses the first device as a 'hub" so I can see it's data, even though it does not directly have WiFi.

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Half of the space under the house is the large garage that I spent a lot of time with air sealing the walls, and the cracks in the floor, as well as painting the cinder-block walls using a roller, and making sure that paint got into any little voids. So the garage is much more air-tight now and no longer feels drafty during the winter. But this means that there is less natural ventilation.

The other half of the house is over a steeply sloped dirt crawl space. It is very primitive and I have been removing old brush (preserved since 1982!), surface rocks (just left there when the foundation ring was dug and poured), and other garbage. This is likely where a lot of the Radon is coming from.

Regardless, these are recent results from the garage. The green was from when we were there and had the windows open. They say that average Radon levels should be kept less than 2, but there have been peaks to 19 in the garage and 7 in the house. It is also said that Radon levels will be highest in the dead of winter as the "stack effect" draws more air from under the house as it rises.

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jeeeep said:
so.... even if you fix it and keep it outside, spending time outdoors is still an issue?
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I assume that this comment is regarding my Radon issue.

I do love the outdoors but of course there can be too much of anything. Being outdoors in really hot, really cold, or wet weather is not pleasant. We like to sleep at night, and watch TV.

One in fifteen homes in the USA have a Radon problem. I am not sure if I will be able to find a local contractor. This is not an area were Radon mitigation is a common thing.

The fix is to install a vacuum fan outside which blows air up a tall stack. PVC pipe is run from the inlet of the fan and into a 3 or 4 inch hole in the concrete slab in order to suck out the gas before it gets in to the house. For the crawl space, common practice is to lay plastic on the ground, sealing any seams in the plastic, and sealing the plastic to the walls. Perforated PVC pipe is laid in the wall perimeter and the same vacuum fan sucks the Radon gas out before it gets into the house.
 
Since the crawl space is wild and unruly (unlike the flat well-groomed crawl spaces I see on YouTube) I have been doing a lot of clean-out.

Part of the work involves removing volcanic rock which was the natural terrain of the slope. Regardless of my herniated condition, I collected the rock and tossed it into the garage via an access hole.

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And then plenty of debris and rubbish (some of which is non-functional insulation) to remove.

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bobfriesenhahn said:
I assume that this comment is regarding my Radon issue.

I do love the outdoors but of course there can be too much of anything. Being outdoors in really hot, really cold, or wet weather is not pleasant. We like to sleep at night, and watch TV.

One in fifteen homes in the USA have a Radon problem. I am not sure if I will be able to find a local contractor. This is not an area were Radon mitigation is a common thing.

The fix is to install a vacuum fan outside which blows air up a tall stack. PVC pipe is run from the inlet of the fan and into a 3 or 4 inch hole in the concrete slab in order to suck out the gas before it gets in to the house. For the crawl space, common practice is to lay plastic on the ground, sealing any seams in the plastic, and sealing the plastic to the walls. Perforated PVC pipe is laid in the wall perimeter and the same vacuum fan sucks the Radon gas out before it gets into the house.
Click to expand...
Short of that allowing cross ventilation within the living spaces will help alleviate high levels. One thing to be aware of is a lot of the testing kits are wildly inaccurate and almost always give a way higher reading than actual levels. Did you know there are spas in Europe where you can go bath in radon water and sit in radon caves as a health spa?. I’d say the science is pretty unsettled on its toxicity. If the government is telling you it’s dangerous and will kill you it’s probably good for you or at the very least benign.
 
NPC 6060⁸42 said:
Short of that allowing cross ventilation within the living spaces will help alleviate high levels. One thing to be aware of is a lot of the testing kits are wildly inaccurate and almost always give a way higher reading than actual levels. Did you know there are spas in Europe where you can go bath in radon water and sit in radon caves as a health spa?. I’d say the science is pretty unsettled on its toxicity. If the government is telling you it’s dangerous and will kill you it’s probably good for you or at the very least benign.
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I did try a charcoal-based test kit at my Dallas home, and the result was higher than expected to the point that maybe it is invalid. These test kits require using them several (or many) times because the Radon levels vary a lot day to day but most kits only test for two days. For Airthings, it takes a new reading every few minutes, and they recommend looking at the monthly average of all the readings. The monthly average will always be much less than the scary peak readings.

Opening a few windows (which one should do if you can) does make a huge difference with the readings.

We don't want to be Radon test subjects just in case the researchers were wrong. Cancer sucks!
 
bobfriesenhahn said:
I did try a charcoal-based test kit at my Dallas home, and the result was higher than expected to the point that maybe it is invalid. These test kits require using them several (or many) times because the Radon levels vary a lot day to day but most kits only test for two days. For Airthings, it takes a new reading every few minutes, and they recommend looking at the monthly average of all the readings. The monthly average will always be much less than the scary peak readings.

Opening a few windows (which one should do if you can) does make a huge difference with the readings.

We don't want to be Radon test subjects just in case the researchers were wrong. Cancer sucks!
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Agree cancer sucks. When we’re sold our first home the buyers wanted an inspection including radon. No problem we knew the house was solid, well the radon test which only took two days came back sky high. Our realtor freaked out like an idiot so wife gets on the old internet and looks up the radon test including the instructions from the company’s test that they used. The first point was DO NOT place this test near any drain. The idiot inspector placed the probe directly above the laundry basin which also had a floor drain right next to it. We of course told the buyers and our agent that if they were bothered by the high reading they should not buy our home but we will keep their deposit since their inspection was faulty. They proceeded with the sale they were just trying to negotiate a better price. Anyway we’ve since done a fair amount of research into radon. As I said earlier crack a couple windows open and don’t sweat it. It seems it can be an issue in some of the super sealed up homes but the older places with leaky windows and doors not so much.
 
NPC 6060⁸42 said:
Agree cancer sucks. When we’re sold our first home the buyers wanted an inspection including radon. No problem we knew the house was solid, well the radon test which only took two days came back sky high. Our realtor freaked out like an idiot so wife gets on the old internet and looks up the radon test including the instructions from the company’s test that they used. The first point was DO NOT place this test near any drain. The idiot inspector placed the probe directly above the laundry basin which also had a floor drain right next to it. We of course told the buyers and our agent that if they were bothered by the high reading they should not buy our home but we will keep their deposit since their inspection was faulty. They proceeded with the sale they were just trying to negotiate a better price. Anyway we’ve since done a fair amount of research into radon. As I said earlier crack a couple windows open and don’t sweat it. It seems it can be an issue in some of the super sealed up homes but the older places with leaky windows and doors not so much.
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Thanks for your experience, and advice.

I am planning to make this a much better sealed home in order to decrease the heating bills. We are planning to add a layer of continuous insulation on the outside, with new windows, and steel siding.

The previous owners did not do much air sealing at all given that I found pipes run through the exterior wall without even sealing with spray foam. Rodents could get in and travel around very easily.

I have already been crawling around sealing up open holes with spray foam, caulk, and XPS project board. Once electrical issues are resolved, I can go next-level with the air-sealing.
 
bobfriesenhahn said:
Thanks for your experience, and advice.

I am planning to make this a much better sealed home in order to decrease the heating bills. We are planning to add a layer of continuous insulation on the outside, with new windows, and steel siding.

The previous owners did not do much air sealing at all given that I found pipes run through the exterior wall without even sealing with spray foam. Rodents could get in and travel around very easily.

I have already been crawling around sealing up open holes with spray foam, caulk, and XPS project board. Once electrical issues are resolved, I can go next-level with the air-sealing.
Click to expand...

next-level air-sealing.

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