Radom levels are usually higher inside during cold winter weather. This could possibly be due to less fresh air from frequent door or windows being open during milder months. I need to look back at my 1.5 years of AirThings radon monitoring and see what time periods were highest.

I bought the Airthings as well to monitor pm2.5 and radon. Now have over a year’s worth of data. Was well worth the money spent.

I have an Air Pura air purifier that runs on low 24 hours a day, except when Pm2.5 starts rising (usually its under 2 on low). Highest was 21 during Canada smoke. Airthings alerted me and purifier went to high and dropped it down to 5-7.

Had a couple days where radon was over 4 for a an hour or two. Average over nearly 1.5 years is under 2.

Jerome: I think airtight homes can be more susceptible to radon because even a moderate breeze or a small fan can induce significant negative pressure. Yes, that sound like Marc Rosenbaum. He’s presented at the Phius conference on house pressure imbalances because of ERVs and once showed some radon data that he thought were influenced by that.

Glad you still subscribe to our newsletter and read the blog. Thanks for the kind words!

100% accurate. When I bought my house in MA I spent hours trying to find real homeowner data for radon deaths and only found inferences from miners exposed to very high levels.

I’ve never seen data of non-smoker homeowners dying from radon in their house.

Scaremonger contractors push expensive remediation based off industrial mining data.

But the real reason I’m commenting is due to something that I found when researching. One article said that radon levels were often highest on the second floor of a house, which was contrary to what I’d previously believed. I thought that people tested in the basement because the highest levels were there, and that levels decreased as you moved higher. After reading that, I got more tests, and sure enough, it was true for our house. I ended up buying several Airfhings radon detectors and placing them throughout the house. Usually, the basement level had the highest level, but the second floor was a close second. The first floor always had the lowest level. Any thoughts on why that might be the case?

I have to side with Ken on this topic. I was a graduate student in the early 1980’s and took a course on IAQ. As part of that course, I had to do an independent literature survey and report on an IAQ topic. I chose radon because it was a relatively new concern at that time. What I found out was that there was good solid data on cancer incidences for uranium miners that were exposed to much higher levels of radon that cited in this blog. The researchers then did a linear extrapolation of the cancer rates that would be expected to occur at the lower rates shown in the table above, even though they had no data in that range. I wish I had the actual data handy for this mining study to show how much extrapolation was done.

A few years later, 60 Minutes did an episode discussing this issue and how it resulted in a radon testing and mitigation industry that many feel experts believe is unnecessary.

I have read other articles by scientists who point out that almost every substance is dangerous at high exposures, but that at low exposures there is typically no effect at all. In fact, low doses of some substances actually make you strong because your body builds immunity. I am not claiming that radon falls in this category, but I haven’t seen any data indicating that it doesn’t either.

I had a house in New York in a high radon area and when I put it up for sale a prospective buyer wanted it tested for radon first. I told him to just assume that it was high and take the cost of a radon mitigation system into account when you make your offer.

I just don’t trust EPA on this issue, but that is just my opinion.

Cody, in a mixture of gases, each gas has its own pressure property. In a passive setup, that pipe is an open pressure relief valve.

Do you think your testing during a fairly idle time for your home’s air handler(s) is sufficient? Should you repeat your testing during the upcoming cooling season?