Radon

averi

My solicitor has told me that house which we are going to buy is in Radon exposure area. How significant is that? I am in a fix whether to go ahead with purchase. Opinion will be appreciated.
Averi

Ted_Hutchinson

Radon Information site

sneekymum

We live close to a radon source and decided to have our house tested - particularly due to the construction of the ground floor - we have a suspended timber floor over bare earth. This means that there is no barrier between us and land gasses. We sent for the Radon tests (little yellow plastic things) and had one downstairs and one upstairs for three months before posting them back - our report came back as low risk.

In your case there are two risks to proceeding with the purchase.

1. If you are affected it may be injurous to your (and/or family's health)

2. It may affect a future sale of the property depending on whether this covers the whole area or not (e.g. everyone else is in the same boat if you live in Cornwall).

Whether the gas can enter your house depends on the construction. If its relatively new it will have been built with this in mind - with an extra-heavy-duty DPM under the ground floor slab and perhaps vented foundations (you can see an air brick below the damp proof course appearing to vent a solid floor. If its an older property (and ours was the worst case scenario) you may have to decide what to do.

Radon testing takes three months and is best done in the winter (when windows are not open as much) - this is too long a time-frame if you're buying a house.

We had a negative result but if it has been positive we would have used the right to anonymity and not delcared it in a future house sale. This right exists (contratry to disclosure rules) as the government is keen to gather more information about this problem.

Sorry there are no easy answers to this (unless its a new house or the area is thouroughly infected with Radon and you've got lung cancer anyway).