Radon Reduction in Crawl Space House

Abstract

Radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas, is drawn from the soil into a house when low air pressure exists in the house. This is a commonplace environmental hazard in the United States, Canada, and northern Europe. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing and demonstrating procedures to use in reducing the radon concentrations in a variety of house types. Until recently, research has focused on basement houses because of their great potential for radon entry; however, other housing substructures also present unique radon problems. Several radon reduction alternatives for crawl space houses are noted, and the successful demonstration of one of these alternatives, subplastic suction, is described in detail. The findings of this study need to be confirmed and supplemented with more measurements, preferably on larger and more complex crawl space houses, and more houses need to be mitigated to provide a statistical test of the subplastic suction technique.