A Beautiful Thing.....

I got the radon test results back from that recent job with the really tight soil-the one with the curious cat?

Anyways I got the radon down to below a .5, super-good results for a house like this. Now I can get paid!!!

Radon Inquiries

Thank you for your recent radon inquiries. I had to leave town for a while on business, but should return by June 1st for good. Sorry about that!

K.A.

Home Improvement

Links:
Wipe Out Winter's Damage to Your Home

Grand Ole Opry

Went to the Grand Ole Opry for the first time ever last night, and I got lucky because Jason Aldean showed up at the end. He belted out 3 of his hits, The Truth, Crazy Town, and My Kinda' Party. Gee whiz, he wasn't even on the program. There were a bunch of senior citizens there. I think they were in a state of shock after this guy played. We also saw Connie Smith, Ricky Skaggs, John Conlee, Luke Bryan, Diamond Rio and Jimmy Dickens. Don't ask me who the rest of those guys are, because I generally have no knowledge of country music. Oh, by the way, I also have no radon work to speak of this week. Maybe better luck next week.

Tight Soil

I had some follow-up work Saturday, as I returned to check on our installation from last week, and it was in need of a phase II for sure. I ended up working on that all day. I had done my best to avoid this client originally, as I know the neighborhood to have no gravel under the homes, which means very difficult to lower the radon.

I had tried to refer them to another mitigator last Fall. When they called recently after the long winter and said nothing had been done yet, I decided to finally take the job, as they have young kids that spend a lot of time in the basement-and I know radon is especially bad for kids during the growth stages.

After the phase I installation, despite the lack of air flow under the floor, radon testing showed that levels had been brought down by about two thirds-from a 27 pCi/L to an 8, but it was still twice the EPA recommended limit. I added another suction point Saturday, in the floor of the bathroom closet, and joined it to the existing pipe.

If radon is still over the limit, I will recommend an energy recovery ventilator. It might get weird though, because that's about another $1,000, but our work is guaranteed. So do I just return the 50% they gave me already and call it a loss, or hit them up for another grand that they probably don't have? I don't know. I did know this job would be tough or impossible.

That's about all that can be done here. I will keep you posted.

                                                         Very little airflow here...........

 The curious cat

Prepare for emergency surgery

We're basically sucking dirt.....I removed another 30 lbs or so

Plastic surgery and we have a 3-way connector

Now where to put the hole in the closet?

This looks like a good spot to slip a pipe above and through the bathroom ceiling....

....and into the bathroom closet

Good news...it looks like we have some gravel underlayer in this part of the basement!

How to join 2 pipes that don't quite line up, vertically to horizontally........

Drop the pipe in about 2 inches and mark the spot

Measure the distance from the proposed pipe connection.......

 .....to the floor

Double-check the amount of distance the pipe drops into the hole.

Total the distance plus the 2 inches extra and cut to fit.

It's a perfect fit!

Remember to caulk around the pipe entrance in the floor.

Now we just need to join the new pipe to the original one.

Remember to add plenty of support brackets.

We have a connection.

Return Trip

I had to return to a client's home yesterday, after their long-term test came back over the limit for radon. All my work is guaranteed, so I have to keep returning until the problem is fixed, or I give them a refund. I think I have 2 jobs, where I did a bunch of work but had to refund them anyways. Those are a killer. Hopefully, this is a fixable house. We shall see....

The vacuum point was originally installed through their sump-pit cover in the basement, which usually works well, but did not in this case. Their original short-term test had returned excellent results, strangely enough.

This time I removed the sump pit section, and installed the pipe through the concrete floor-the more standard approach, giving us a shorter pipe run. I also applied concrete sealer around the entire perimeter of the basement. This is a big radon entry point, where the expansion joints are located:

 Sealing the perimeter of the basement

 Original pipe entry from adjoining crawlspace

 O marks the spot

 Bracing hammer drill with my knee

 Suctioning out a gravel pit

 A thick gravel under-layer is a huge advantage in effective radon reduction

 This Brown Recluse would surely put a hurtin' on ya'.

  Several tools needed for radon mitigation

 

 Finished!

                   Dumping gravel at my secret spot

Free Estimates Today

Even though things are slowing down as summer approaches, I still have several appointments set up from the last two months. If things get really slow, like last summer, I may head to Philadelphia to see if I can draw more business from that huge tri-state area, PA, NJ and NY, that is known for high radon levels. I will keep you posted.

Wednesday was an adventure in that I drove 46 miles to my first "free appointment" only to find nobody home. Since I didn't want to waste the trip, I went to the local Costco and a few other local establishments that I usually reserve for Saturdays. I then proceeded to my 12:00 appointment in Brentwood, who was, thankfully, home.

10:00 a.m. Franklin-No apparent signs of life:

10:15 a.m.-Costco:

I noticed Costco doesn't carry normal incandescent light bulbs any more. They just have those curly-cue looking energy saver bulbs that are basically crap. What a pain in the neck these energy Nazis are, for sure. I had to go to Lowes to get "normal" bulbs. I got a bunch, in the big boxes and I suggest you do too, before they all disappear, for good.

Everyone who actually does want to save energy would do well to install one of these attic fans in their house before it gets stinkin' hot.

 A beautiful day........

12:00 A Brentwood crawlspace:

I will probably give an estimate to seal the entire space with 6ml vapor barrier...

2:00-bought this awesome combo ratcheting screwdriver at Lowes:

3:30 Headed Home:

Old Tractor on Rt 96