Radioactive issue is coming from search, Your opinion will be helpful ....

adindas

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Werdnal

If radon was that much of an issue, half of Cornwall would be uninhabitable!

There are free Radon tests available to tell if the property has nigh concentrations, but they take readings over a specified timescale, and will delay your purchase considerably if you want to vendor to perform one before you proceed.

Alternatively, you could point out that the survey has thrown up this issue, and as there is no documentary proof that the house is or is not affected, you want ot re-negotiate the offer price to account for any remedial work you may need to pay for if a test shows there is a concern.

There are remedial works available, which usually include installing a sump and pump under the property to vent any radon that is accummulating to the outside. No idea how much this would cost - perhaps you can get some estimates to help your decision/negotiations with the vendor. If the area is prone to Radon, there must be specialist engineers familiar with the problem, who would be able to advise you what the implications are and give a guesstimate of the cost of any work needed. However, just because the area is considered a Radon hotspot, it doesn't necessarily mean all or any houses are affected.

Radon is a naturally occuring gas emitted from granite bedrock. It never used to be an issue in the past, as houses were not as "hermetically sealed" as modern ones are. Draughty windows and open chimneys allow radon to naturally disperse into the atmosphere. Its only since we started using double glazing and building houses with no fireplaces that it has become a problem.

Richard_Webster

Hardly any properties in an area where the search shows 1-3% have ever had their radon level tested.

The 1-3% is the number of home within a given area that might statistically be over the minimum. I think you will find that at that level no special measures or precations are generally recommended.

If you worried about this you would never to Cornwall for your holidays as the levels there are typically very high.

I-love-a-bargain_2

We bought in a supposedly high risk radon-area. We bought a detector which showed it was a very low level. If worried have it tested beforehand.

bouicca21

I thought Radon was usually a problem in areas with granite? Not a lot of that in Woolwich.

Davesnave

bouicca21 wrote: »

I thought Radon was usually a problem in areas with granite? Not a lot of that in Woolwich.

It's all the posh worktops! :rotfl:

00ec25

bouicca21 wrote: »

I thought Radon was usually a problem in areas with granite? Not a lot of that in Woolwich.

a common misconception

read the sections on "Waht is radon" and "geographical distribution of radon" from the health protection Agency
http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733807197
and look at their map to see the extent of the 1 - 3% area
http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Radiation/UnderstandingRadiation/UnderstandingRadiationTopics/Radon/radon_Map/


in context "about one in thirty people exposed for a lifetime at the Action Level would be expected to develop lung cancer" That means a lifetime of living in the same house above an action level without having installed any measures to reduce it - so greater chance than those of winning the national lottery but I bet some of you still play the lottery and expect to win

00ec25

Davesnave wrote: »

It's all the posh worktops! :rotfl:

at the risk of spoiling your humour there is even a FAQ explaining about risks from granite worktops in the home !

AlexMac

No problem; if you look online at something like the 'Indicative Atlas of radon in England and Wales' (by JCH Miles, JD Appleton and others; Health Protection Agency and the British Geological Survey, October 2007 -google it), you'll see that over half of the country is in a '1-3% or above' risk area but that is the second lowest category (after 0-1%) and that great swathes of Cornwall are in the top 'over 30%' risk. While most of the south east of England is lowest risk, there's a band of 1-3% territory about 100 miles West-to-East by 15 miles north -south running from south London to the Kent coast at Dover. So you, I (just up the road in Blackheath) and about 3 million other people in Kent and London share the same negligible risk level due to our geology.

I'd be more worried that the Arsenal was the site of royal munitions manufacturing and testing from the 16th Century so there are probably a few ghosts around from what must have been one of the more hazardous occupations in the days before 'risk-managers' stayed scaring us with their ridiculously cautious advice about things that will never happen

littlesnuggy

If you choose to ignore it now, just bare in mind that any future buyer might not.

If the property does have elevated levels of radon, remedial works to reduce it are likely to cost anywhere between £800 - £3000, depending on the levels found, the type and size of the property.

Depending how close you are to exchanging/completing I'd advise carrying out a 10 day screening test. This should cost around £50 for a pair of detectors (one for a bedroom and one for a living room), including analysis. If the results come back very low you probably don't have a problem. If they come back very high, then you do and should negotiate a purchase price reduction with the vendor to cover the costs of the works. Often the results will come back at a middle-y result that cannot conclude for ceratin whether there is or isn't a problem, which is why radon testing is ideally carried out over a 3 month period.

There is a recognised procedure advised by the Law Society for this scenario whereby an agreed amount of the purchase price (usually £2500) is held back by one of the solicitors whilst full 3-month testing is carried out. This is basically a retention and is referred to as a 'radon bond'. If the results of these tests show the levels are in excess of the action level, remedial works are paid for from this retained fund. If they are not, the money is released to the vendor.

Word of advice - there are commercial companies that offer radon testing a) cheaper and b) turn the results around A LOT faster than the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

go_cat

We had a high reading come back from our survey so solicitor recommended ringing the surveyor , which I did.

To have it explained in basic English was reassuring and as it turned out his "map" said our area wasn't high anyway.