Radon Mitigation System

Tim Carter, AskTheBuilder.com, and I'm going to talk a little bit about radon mitigation

system or systems. And you might be able to see it over my shoulder here. They started to put one

in in this new home. A little housekeeping first. Number one, I am not building this home

Some other builder is doing it. So if you see things wrong or things that don't seem right

Don't blame me. Number two, if you discover something new in the video or something that

helps you save time or money, why not buy me a beer? Huh? Maybe two beers. All you have to do

is look below the video. See that thanks text link. Click it. Buy me a couple of beers. I'd

sure appreciate it. Let's get started and I'll just, let's get started and I will share with you

all you need to know about radon. This is four inch pipe. It's perforated, so you can see those

holes in it. Well, maybe you can't, but it's perforated drain pipe. Comes in about 10 foot

lengths, and they put it around the perimeter of where the slab is going to go in this particular

job. And then what it does is it exits right here. This is going to serve both as a drain tile

and a radon mitigation system. So how do I know that? How do I know that? Well, the clue is right

here If you walk over here you see this T Looks like the letter T but it upside down and you got a vertical pipe a four pipe that coming up that going to poke up out of the slab If this was just a drain tile you would never see this vertical pipe and they did the exact same thing over in this other slab

area, but this particular pipe is tilted really bad. Hopefully, they're going to fix that. They

need to straighten that up. That's really poor workmanship. The biggest problem that I have

with this installation as a drain towel system, and you can really see it clearly here

notice that this pipe's got a belly in it. In other words, the pipe has not been placed in gravel

This pipe should have been level at the very least, and better that it would slope all the

way down to the end where it pokes through the foundation. We talked about this in an earlier

video. The biggest problem with this particular pipe using it as a drain tile is that that's going

to freeze in the wintertime. Water that gets in this area here in the middle of January, it's not

getting out. Who knows what's going to happen with it? Well, I pretty much know what's going to happen

with it. It's just going to keep rising up until it leaks out of the slab. All right, so how does

radon work? Well first of all this is all solid granite. We talked about that in an earlier video

one of the first videos in the series. They had to break it all out. Granite is known to be a

source of radon. A radon is a gas. It can cause lung cancer and you want to be able to collect it

You want to be able to get it out of your home and there no easier way to do it in new construction than this In other words this particular pipe once the house is built you may see it later it going to go all the way up to the roof and all they have to do is just

poke that pipe out through the roof just like a plumbing vent pipe and every time the wind blows

it will suck air and suck radon out of this underneath the slab. The other thing they have

to do, which is really, really important. And we'll see if they do it. Once this entire area is filled

with gravel, they typically fill it to the top of the footing and they need to cover it with a high

performance vapor retarder. Not the crap stuff, cheap six mil stuff you see at the home centers

You need to use really, really cross laminated, like something like Super Samson made by Raven

industries. It needs to pass ASTM 1745, but you need a really high performance vapor barrier to

stop the radon from working its way through the vapor barrier. And it's not that much more expensive

Just get a really, really good vapor retarder. It's really important to realize that when you

install the pipe like this, this perforated drain pipe, it comes with different fittings

You can get couplings, you can get T fittings, 45 degree angles, and regular 90s

And you're going to need all those to put in a system like this. That's really all you need to know about radon mitigation systems

If you're building a new home, check the maps that are out there on the internet

There are all kinds of maps that show you what the places are that have radon the places that have the highest risk the places that have the lowest risk You know it only takes a little bit of time to put one of these systems in

and it's not that expensive. Even if you're in a low-risk area, I would recommend doing it

You might not run the pipe up all the way through the roof now, but I would recommend doing it

and that way you can sleep at night, and it's a big plus when you go to sell your home

So make sure that you put in the correct pipe. Make sure that it goes up through the roof

You can even attach one of those Whirlybird turbine vents to it if you really want to pull the radon out

You don't have to buy one of those fans. You don't need electricity. Anytime the wind blows across that pipe up on the roof, it's going to suck the radon right out of your home

It's really, really a really good system. If you've got any questions, just come to my Ask the Builder website

And remember, if you discovered something new, why not buy me a beer

Maybe two. Nothing hard to do about that at all. Look under the video

See that text link that says thanks with a heart next to it

Go ahead and click it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks very much

I'm Tim Carter, AskTheBuilder.com. If you want to discover more home improvement tips, go to askthebuilder.com