Transcript
Episode 16: Radon Gas! What every home buyer should know about the health risks
Introduction 00:00
This is Listen Up Home Buyers. The only podcast offering Home Buying advice and tips from true buyer agents, and now here’s your host, Victoria Ray Henderson.
Victoria Ray Henderson 00:10
Now today’s guests are Glenford and Yvonne Blanc. They are principals of Pro-Spex Home Inspection Company, which is local to the Baltimore, Washington DC area, and I would like to add that they have won the Angie’s List super Service Award for 8 years in a row. So congratulations, Glen and Yvonne, thank you so much for joining me, you guys.
Glenford Blanc 00:31
Thanks for the invitation.
Victoria Ray Henderson 00:32
Absolutely. Today, I wanted to focus on something that comes up all the time. Of course, many things come up during the Home Inspection that we could cover and we probably will. But today mostly about Radon. Last month, the EPA designates January as Radon National Awareness Month, and I just wanted to talk to you to specifically about your thoughts on it and just take it away because it is a major concern for all Home Buyers. You know, the first leading cause of lung cancer in the country after smoking? So I want to get the word out to buyers about what it is?
Glenford Blanc 01:13
Well, I think there’s a general misconception that only certain types of homes have radon, which is completely not true. Oftentimes, people say, well, it doesn’t have a basement. So radon should not be a problem. No, that’s not quite the case. You know, it’s a function of where the house sits, what is below the house, the rocks, the water, because this comes up out of the soil comes through water, and it enters the home through cracks in the foundation and through water in different ways. So, depending on how the house is built, then the radon gases will get trapped in the house cannot escape, and the radon gases rise over time.
Victoria Ray Henderson 01:59
Let’s tell everybody, radon is a radioactive gas, naturally occurring. I think it’s when uranium breaks down. So that could happen as you point out very — You know, clearly, it could happen in any kind of a building and it doesn’t matter where you are, there are certain areas that seem to have more of it but it is really important for everybody all over the country.
Yvonne Blanc 02:23
Yes, I think the key thing in dealing with radon is knowing that it’s not something that you can see or something that you can smell. So the only way to find out what your level of radon is, is to get it tested, and to also know that it exists in all homes, just like we were saying because it exists in the soil, and it also exists in water. So understanding what the level is will allow you to be better able to be the fixture home to get the radon out of your home, and to be more comfortable living in your home knowing that you’re not breathing in radon, each and every day for long periods of time, and that the levels are very high because it’s that length of time and those high levels that equate to the exposure of potentially getting lung cancer.
Victoria Ray Henderson 03:12
It is first leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers in the country. So, Yvonne, can you can you talk about what you mean by it exists in water, because that is something that a lot of people may not really quite understand.
Yvonne Blanc 03:26
Yes, radon, being a gas. It’s also I can transfer through water. I’m actually doing a course on that now. But what happens is that radon can get trapped in air bubbles, and the bubbles are a gas with the air inside of it right on is trapped inside of there. So if it has no way to escape, then it just exists in the home. So there’s two different types of tests you can get a radon [phonetic 03:53] in air test, and you can get a radon in water test. Right now our company just does radon in air testing, but we’re looking at ways that we can provide that to potential homeowners by being able to test for radon in water.
Victoria Ray Henderson 04:10
Walk me through at Pro-Spex how you test for radon? What are the steps that happened there?
Yvonne Blanc 04:19
Well, there’s different types of testing machines that you can use as most people are familiar with charcoal testing or charcoal canisters, and we use a continuous radon monitor, and what happens, the monitor isn’t electric so it has to be plugged in or used by a battery operated machine and it stays in the home for a minimum of 48 hours. During that time the Monitors detecting on an hourly basis, what the levels of radon are, and then it calculates what the averages are and that’s what we use to determine whether the levels of radon are high in the home.
Glenford Blanc 04:59
The reason we don’t use the charcoal canister is because:
- It has to be sent to a lab.
- You have to maintain the charcoal canisters in a controlled environment from the time that it’s put in place, leaves your possession travels through the mail, gets to the lab opened up, all of that has to be controlled in order for you to ensure that you have a reliable result at the end of the day.
And so fewer and fewer companies use that method, and that’s why we use an electronic monitor, which, when you don’t have those issues, there’s no lab involved. It’s program, we download the results to our computers, and we can tell you what the results are in a matter of hours, as opposed to waiting several days.
Victoria Ray Henderson 05:51
When I’ve been with your inspectors, these radon measuring devices are about like this big, they go into the lowest part of the house. I know that your people have set up a little sign that says, “Radon Testing” which is good and I know that when you come back and you do the measurements, you’re measuring what’s called Pico Curies, can you talk about what numbers are in the safe ranges and not safe ranges?
Yvonne Blanc 06:01
Yes basically, what we consider safe ranges are anything below 2.0 would be ideal. That’s how it’s measured 2.0, 2.1, 3.1, things like that. Anything above 4.0, and above when you’re dealing with a real estate transaction or purchasing a home is the measurement that they use to determine whether you need to go ahead and do what they call Abatement or in other words, fix the Home to get rid of the radon and pull it out of the house.
Glenford Blanc 06:53
It is important to understand that these are standards that are established by the EPA, this is not something that we’ve set, we follow the EPA guidelines for testing and measurement, and there’s no way we can alter or in any way modify the results, the results come straight out of the equipment that we use, and we supply that to the customer in a report which explains in detail what the radon level charts mean. We also have explanations of what radon mitigation systems look like, how they’re installed. So we’ve tried to put together a pretty comprehensive report. So you know, what steps you have to take if your readings turned out to be high.
Victoria Ray Henderson 07:40
From my perspective, as an Exclusive Buyer Broker, that’s when the client freaks out. We were in the house one time, we got a reading back, I literally went 13 no 13 and half [laughter] [phonetic 07:51] panic because they’d been in the house for half an hour.
Yvonne Blanc 08:02
That’s a good point. I think the key thing with radon, unlike some other things is knowing when you experience a high levels of radon, the key thing is that you can do something about it, if you could not do anything about it, then that would be one thing but knowing that you can get rid of radon is key to knowing that, you know, once you do that you can also get tested test afterwards to make sure that the system that’s installed is working, and then you have some peace of mind when that’s done.
Victoria Ray Henderson 08:36
So I know you can’t give me hard numbers about how much it costs. I know the cost is determined by the style of the home. I know split levels, at least in my personal experience, sometimes that can be more challenging in terms of the radon mitigation, but in general, and I know it’s a big in general, what are we looking at in terms of cost? You know….
Yvonne Blanc 08:57
For the testing of monitor [phonetic 08:58]
Victoria Ray Henderson 09:00
-Well, the testing and then the mitigation.
Yvonne Blanc 09:02
Mitigation– For the testing party, you estimate about 150 to 200, for the testing, give or take, and then for the mitigation, it really depends because— Some homes now, depending on the location of the home, sometimes they have a pipe installed, which is half the battle of dealing with the abatement. So the last numbers that we ran, we estimate about $8 – $900 or more, and it could be like I said that those are kind of round numbers, but that’s what we’re seeing and hearing.
Glenford Blanc 09:38
On the high side, you might see closer to $2000 because of the design of the home or what it takes for the contractor to get the system installed.
Victoria Ray Henderson 09:51
Go into that a little bit because I was in a split level that actually had five levels and they had high radon and the process of mitigation was going to be more expensive because of the way the house is laid out. So if you wouldn’t mind, because of your architecture background – Everybody, what is that split level? Why does that affect the cost?
Glenford Blanc 10:14
Well, let’s talk about a traditional home, traditional colonial, you’ve got a basement. On top of that, you got the first floor on the second floor, so you have a single basement slab, and what the system is trying to do, it’s sucking the air out from under the slab. Just to explain that a little further by sucking the air out from under the slab, you are reducing the air pressure, you’re creating a vacuum, and air travels from high pressure to low pressure in an effort to balance, I equate it to the wind. The reason it’s windy in your part, in anywhere is because somewhere else the air pressure is low so that wind is moving towards the low pressure area to raise the pressure.
So when you lower the pressure air pressure under the house, it means that the air in the house goes exits the house through whatever cracks they are keeping the radon level, as opposed to opposite. If the air pressure under the house is higher than the air seeps into the house and brings the radon with it. So the back pump tries to suck air out from the house. OK, so with the colonial it’s pretty simple one slab, drill a hole, use a sump pump or whatever, and you insert your system and then you go out, that’s pretty straightforward. With a split level, you typically have 2 slabs, your lowest slab, then you have your mid-level slip, and you have to get the error on the both slabs. So either you have to put in 2 systems, or you have to put in system 2 pipes, which connects to that one system. So it’s much more work that’s involved-
Victoria Ray Henderson 12:03
And more money.
Glenford Blanc 12:04
-How your house might be finished. You don’t want to see you know what in the middle of your living rooms, but you want to in an area where it’s not visible, you may have to drill through the foundation, the drill through the outside wall and find a way to disguise it if you will. So it can be a lot more challenging, which can throw up your cost significantly.
Victoria Ray Henderson 12:23
And that fan that you’ve mentioned, I’ll mention this because it comes up in the conversations with my buyers. It’s not a loud fan.
Glenford Blanc 12:31
No, it’s very quiet.
Victoria Ray Henderson 12:33
And it’s lower than the sound of your exterior compressor on…
Glenford Blanc 12:37
Oh yes, it’s very, very quiet and the other thing you want to keep in mind because it’s electronic, the requirement is there has to be an electrical outlet, which you have to plug into, depending on the dynamics of your home. Ideally, that electrical outlet that is plugged into should be a dedicated outlet. So it cannot accidentally be turned off by a light switch or someone else plugging something in, which means you may have to involve an electrician to run a special circuit, which could add to your cost.
Victoria Ray Henderson 13:07
-A couple of $100.
Glenford Blanc 13:08
Yes, sometimes the installers will put the fan in the attic. So that way, it’s out of the way: it’s invisible, it’s quiet. But then now you got to get power up to your attic. So all of those things start to add to the cost.
Victoria Ray Henderson 13:20
And the final thing I want to touch on is the measuring device that’s on the actual radon pipe?
Glenford Blanc 13:25
It’s called Petri tube.
Victoria Ray Henderson 13:28
Go ahead and describe to people. So once you’ve had the radon mitigation system set up, you’ve got this device that I’m doing this because it looks like a thermometer and it’s kind of [laughter] tell them what that is and the significance of it.
Glenford Blanc 13:43
Yeah, it’s a petri dish. Yes, it’s called a Petri tube basically it’s a U shaped glass with a chemical with a fluid in it that’s color coded, and basically, all it does when the fan is running, the air pressure causes an imbalance in the liquid that’s in the tube. So the two sides of the tube, the liquid will be at different levels. If they are ever equal, it’s telling you that your fan is either turned off, or your fan is not working.
Victoria Ray Henderson 14:11
OK
Glenford Blanc 14:12
Because the fan is often hidden somewhere up in an attic where you never really see it. So it’s a way of telling you whether or not your system is actually running.
Victoria Ray Henderson 14:19
Yes. Is there anything else that you think consumers need to know? You know, homebuyers need to know about this? I know in Montgomery County, Maryland, and this podcast goes out all over the country and all over the world. But in the Montgomery County, Maryland, the home seller is required to provide the buyer with the results of a radon test. They’re not required to do any kind of mitigation but at least you know when you’re buying a house, whether or not the radon levels are high. Is there anything else you want to add about the radon testing process or anything else that buyers should know?
Yvonne Blanc 14:55
Yes, I was just talking to a potential client about radon and one of the things that I emphasize to her is that, “To be in the know”, and basically, I think a lot of people kind of put that aside, and it’s really important to know what’s going on in your home. I know a lot of people look at things that they can see, you know, your walls, your plan, your utilities, those fun things, but it’s those things that you can’t see, which you should really be more concerned about. Because you should know that those things that you can’t see may or may not be causing some harm to you and your family. So if that’s really important to you, then it would be good for you to know what those levels are within the home.
Glenford Blanc 15:40
Yes, I just like to stress again, as we said earlier, all homes have radon; you can never get a find a house with zero radon just doesn’t exist, and as well, as my wife said earlier, there is a solution to this. So it’s not something you need to panic about. Just know that the home has it. The question is, how high are the values? And do I need to install a mitigation system? Once you’ve installed the system, it’s always good to do, what we might call a clearance test. So you do a test after the system is installed? That way, you know that the system is doing the job that it’s supposed to do?
Victoria Ray Henderson 16:26
Yes, from my perspective, because I only work providers, and because it is incredibly difficult right now for buyers to find a home at a price that they can really comfortable with. My challenge is informing making sure that they’re protected, and yet competitive as we try to get a house. One of the things I say is, if you can afford to do the radon test later, we recommend that you do it, but that you definitely do it or you do it during the home inspection. But you don’t make the offer contingent on the results. You just know that down the road, you’re going to have to mitigate because it’s crazy out here trying to find people a home.
Glenford Blanc 17:11
It is. Yes, I mean, the effects of radon don’t happen overnight. If it did, I mean, you’re walking around, you got to work, you’re breathing radon, you know, you get on the bus, you are breathing radar, wherever you live right now you’re breathing radon. So don’t think of it in those terms. Just think of it as long term exposure to high levels, and that’s what you’re talking about.
Victoria Ray Henderson 17:41
For those who are a little bit hypochondriac, just hearing you say, “It’s everywhere”. [Laughter] I was thinking of you guys the other day, because, you know, you have so many home inspections that you do go on, but one time, you know, I was with you, my husband and our client, and we were talking about deck safety because I’m transitioning, I want to make sure this is covered. Because springtime when people start being able to go outside, especially wherever, you know, of course, in the southwest, they’re already out there but deck safety is huge, and I just want to touch on it, and I think maybe another time we can talk more about it. But I was in a townhouse. You know with you we looked at that deck and it looked like it was freestanding from the back of the house.
And I don’t think people still to this day understand how important it is to have a safe deck, especially when you’re two stories up from the ground. 10, 15 people on that deck, and you would expect it to hold them. But talk about your experience with that. I know you’ve written a book about it. So we don’t have that much time. [Laughter]
Glenford Blanc 18:52
Yes, that’s the deck safety he can take on a whole another discussion but one way to look at it is this. Your deck is exposed to Mother Nature. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and it’s getting rained on, it’s getting snowed on, it’s getting beaten up, and it doesn’t take much for something to work its way loose, which could cause you a problem down the road. The requirements for decks have changed tremendously over the past five to 10 years to make them more sturdy, more independent of the house. Most older decks that were built depend on the house that they’re attached to for their support. You building a deck today that’s no longer the case.
They don’t want that dependence, and so we’ve added a lot of brackets in various things and so things work loose all the time. Parts wear out, bolts corrode. If you have the wrong type of bolts, they corrode wood rot, set sin, and all of those things can lead to a deck failure, like I think two years ago, was two years ago or last year, two decks failed in Montgomery county, and there are 1000s and 1000s of decks that would that are 20 and 30 years old, that are nowhere near today’s standards for deck construction. So I tell everyone springs coming is the best time to just get have your deck inspected. Better safe than sorry.
Victoria Ray Henderson 20:29
What am I looking for when I want to protect my buyer? And I have my untrained eyes. I mean, I’ve been around, you know, you enough to know what I’m looking for. But what am I looking for? When I walk underneath that back and I look up? How can I just help them? I mean, I know about the rusty bolts and all that.
Glenford Blanc 20:47
The first warning, the first caution is the deck, and I’m going to use the term carefully freestanding; meaning, if you think of it like a table. Does it have four legs to stand on? Or does it have two legs? And the other side of the deck relies on its attachment to the house? That is the old standard for adding decks too old to existing houses. If it does, then the question is: how well is it secured to the side of the house, the fact that there’s bolts there is not enough, gain one of those bolts attached to it. That’s where the weak point is in a lot of these decks.
The other thing you can look for is what they call diagonal bracing. If it’s a deck, like I’ve just described, you’ve got two posts, you’ve got a beam. But there isn’t a diagonal between the posts of the beam going at 45 degrees.
Well, you put a couple people on this deck and you start swaying left to right, all of a sudden the entire deck starts to sway, and those diagonal braces are there to prevent the deck from swaying, and this is typical of most decks that are out there. No diagonal bracing, and they are bolted to the side of the house. So yes, so that’s a practice that if you’re adding a new deck today, you can no longer do that. Look for those two things first and that’ll give you a sense of, “OK, we need to get a deck inspection”.
Victoria Ray Henderson 22:22
Yes, you know, the other the other test that we do, my husband and I, we’re not small people. So we get out on that deck together and start [laughter] [inaudible 22:32] buyer comes out, they’re like, Hey, “Is this supposed to”. We’re like, “No”.
Glenford Blanc 22:36
And that’s why the diagonal bracing is important. It prevents that from happening. You know, those things don’t have it.
Victoria Ray Henderson 22:43
Yes. So I’m hoping that you can come on Listen Up Home Buyers in the next couple of months, and we can just focus on deck safety and I just wanted to do this as a teaser, because it is incredibly important to have a safe deck. I mean, we’ll have to do is Google, you know, deck fail, and you will sadly some tragic stories. So this is just a heads up for everybody that we will have Glenford and Yvonne Blanc on Listen up Home Buyers to talk about decks. But was there anything you’d like to add before we close out?
Glenford Blanc 23:17
No, I’m good.
Yvonne Blanc 23:18
I am good.
Victoria Ray Henderson 23:23
Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Today’s guests have been Glen and Yvonne Blanc. They are the principals of prospects, and they serve the Greater Washington DC and Baltimore area as an inspection company service. So thanks again. You guys have a wonderful day.
Glenford Blanc 23:39
All right, you too.
Yvonne Blanc 23:39
Thank you.
Speaker 23:40
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