Various emails I have received and replied to regarding radon gas:
This letter was in response to a Remax agent insisting that my clients pay for radon gas mitigation on the home I had sold them a couple of years earlier:
Hey Art and Sandy,
Of course it came in at 18 picocuries, they will always find more pico's over the allowed EPA amount in any home in any part of the country if they test long enough, especially if a relocating company is involved. Are you sure they aren't lying to you? Did you watch the meter on their equipment? How long did it register at 18, or was it 2 for the first 12 hours and then 18 picocuries for all of 2 minutes? Was it just in one room or did they have testers in all of the rooms? I've never been able to get any of them to show me anything about their little electronic testing box, apparently it's technical and forbidden by the Radon gods. You need to re test with a different company and open at least the window closest to their test equipment, if not several windows. Turn the furnace blower motor on to "run" to get good circulation through out the house. You could take the tester outside. That will get rid of the radon. Keep in mind that you don't live without using the doors and windows, bath fans, and the furnace.
You still don't have to mitigate it, don't let anyone tell you that. But, the buyer can use it as an excuse to walk from the contract. I have no doubt they will NOT walk away, since they're getting a steal of a buy on your home and since they will find radon in every house they buy anywhere. I'd tell them, as I do all my clients, to mitigate it themselves if they don't like it, and to do their homework. If they want the house, they'll waive that objection and tell the relo company they want the home, radon included, which they have the legal right to do.
Don't let the same guy that did the test do the fix. You can not trust these people. I have caught 2 testing companies lying to me in the past, that's why I've done so much research on radon ( the first one only wanted to charge me $14,000. and destroy my basement floor in the process). It's a scam and they know it. Also realize, these desk jockeys are very tight with the real estate agents. They all make money off it.
I hope to have at least 18 pico's in my home, I love radon! The medical doctor I sold a home to 3 years ago didn't even want his house tested, as he felt it was a waste of money and time. I talked to 2 other local doctors about radon and they laughed at the suggestion it causes cancer. I was told that our local hospital doesn't even put it on their cancer questionnaire when you enter their hospital.
It's great you sold your home and I hope you did OK on it. Sorry to see you leave so soon but I understand the desire to want to be close the kids, the grand kids are only little once. Chris
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September 16, 2015:
Greetings from Canada. I am a newly certified Rn measurement technologist and am nearing completion of the mitigation course. My background is in construction / facility management and my current venture is the technical services company you see below. I have read with great interest everything on your website, and others, regarding opposite opinions for Rn effects.
The overriding fact I have observed is that almost all of these studies, surveys, etc etc are from the 70's 80's 90's. I am keenly interested in a balanced approach to any information I impart. Please advise if you know of any current studies that support your claims for radiation hormesis benefits, Rn myth etc. Thanks, Dan
Hello Dan,
I just haven’t had much time updating my site regarding radon. I’m a home builder, not a scientist, and I already have proven my point beyond what I care about, that this is another EPA hoax. Just recently, several Democrat Congress members had the guts to suggest that Obama should jail “global warming skeptics”. Last week the state of New York started legal proceedings against Exxon regarding their scientific research for the last 40 years, just because they don’t agree with the President and his minions. If I get too vocal about Radon locally, I will pay the price down at our Health Dept. since they are the ones I have to go to for my septic/building permits. They can make my life very difficult and I’ve had words with their department head. That’s why you don’t see builders getting involved, it’s much safer and cheaper to be quiet, and to just go ahead and mitigate radon. I wish I had kept some screen shots of the EPA’s website back in the early nineties. They started out claiming over 125,000 people a year were dying from radon. Of course, back then they just got laughed at, since not that many people died from lung and breast cancer combined. So they dropped the number to 85k, then down to 60k, 35k, and now it’s about 20k, which is still a fabricated number, as they have no evidence that one person has ever gotten cancer from radon (do you know anyone who absolutely died from radon?). That number, along with intense tax payer money funded advertising, started to make sense to our poorly educated public. Keep in mind that they still can’t force me to mitigate radon in court, because they still can’t prove one of their claims.
I recently asked two doctors, one specialized in cancer, if they thought there was any validity to the EPA’s claims. One said they seriously doubted that that would be possible, and the other said we should be more worried about things that really can cause cancer.
But, FYI, this web site has a great deal more updated information. These are real scientists who know far more than I about radiation, and I trust them far more than our new socialist US government.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
November 7, 2015:
Hello Chris,
Congratulations on your excellent reporting about radon, Prof. Bernard Cohen and the rest of your research on your website: Bryant Builders.
I found your website when looking for references on radon limits for homes. The EFN website works for public education about nuclear energy, radioisotopes for nuclear medicine and nuclear science and low-dose radiation: We currently have 66 articles and PowerPoint Presentations about RADIATION NOTE: Each article has a picture. This would give your website exposure to our 3,900 viewers in 113 countries. It would be a service to many people across the United States. Let me know if you approve.
https://www.efn-usa.org/
John
Hello John,
I had some time to take a quick look at your web site and I am very impressed. I wasn’t sure anyone ever read my site except for a few clients. Feel free to copy and use what ever I have available and thanks for asking first. I’d like to link your site to mine as well. I just responded to a radon tester from Canada and gave him your link. He was wondering why I hadn’t been using any updated info, as if the latest radon stats had changed to favor his testing. It’s so sad to see what has happened to our educational system. I don’t have a background in Science or Physics, but even I have the brains to know not to trust the EPA’s research. I have a feeling you know of Dr. Art Robinson at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. What he went through with his kids when they were at Oregon State University was appalling. A Science professor stole his son’s research, claiming it was his, then sold it. When the University and Politician's refused to do anything about it, Dr. Robinson ran for office. Him and his family were destroyed by the lying liberal media and Democrats and he lost, but the University was eventually forced to reprimand the professor and his son got his research back. Dr. Camen, who died a few years ago, was a professor at OISM and he was the one who came up with Carbon Dating. When intelligent people like these disagree with the EPA, I tend to believe the Scientist’s first.
I no longer have the links to the blog I had found regarding Dr. Cohen. But it was funny reading the emails he was sending to Lynch attempting to get him to debate his research. The couple of times Lynch came out of his University of Iowa cave and tried, he had little success. I’d say Dr. Cohen was several pay grades above Lynch and both sessions ended with Lynch, in typical liberal fashion, calling Cohen names and claiming he was being paid by the coal industry and was stupid, etc., etc.. You might be able to find that on the UoI blogs or maybe Dr. Cohen would respond to your request for info. I’m not sure if he has updated any of his research, as I believe his is getting a bit old, but it would be great if he did.
When people find out what a “Radon Mitigater” does for $2,500 to $3,500., they usually laugh or cry, depending if they spent the money. A cheap inline fan, about 20 feet of pvc pipe, a cord to plug in the fan, a 4” hole drilled into their basement floor, and about 4 hours of labor is what you get. Total cost of material: about $100.00. If anyone you know has had that work done, ask them if they ever retested the house after the fix. Most don’t. That’s why you’ll never know if it worked, especially since once that junk is installed, the real estate agents never test the house again, “cause it’s been fixed”. The only accurate way to test for radon is to leave testing equipment in every room in the house, and for at least 30 days. Even then the readings may not be accurate, but would at least be closer to the true levels you have. This still does not account for peoples lifestyles, how many kids, how long the doors and windows are open, how long do the fans run, etc.. The same home, but with a different family, will show very different levels. No one ever test’s like this, so how do you really know. That’s why the EPA recommends that you don’t put those stupid free test kits in the bathrooms or kitchen (they have exhaust fans in them), and don’t test on a windy day or open the windows or doors, etc.. They do recommend that you put them in the basement right over the floor drain. Hmmmm, I wonder why that’s where all the testers put their test equipment? The last time I went to an “official” EPA Radon public meeting, which cost the tax payers 250k, they handed out an information booklet that looked like a 3rd grade coloring book. That’s what the government thinks the vast majority of American’s reading level is.
I got involved in 1995, when a buyer hired a Home (desk jockey) Inspector. I was told that due to the radon testing, I couldn’t go into my home for 3 days, which turned into 7, into 10, and then 2 weeks. I had work to complete to get it ready to close and decided to take a chance and go in. I was furious. This idiot had used cheap masking tape to seal all the very expensive wood windows and doors with heavy plastic. The tape’s glue had embedded itself into my beautiful oak trim, which ruins wood if it has not been sealed. The plastic was causing damage to the windows due to intense heat building up between the windows and plastic. He had about 5 of those cheap test kits hanging from a string right over the floor drain in the basement. When the report came back, he called to tell me I had a terrible radon problem and he’d have to fix it. His solution was to cut 12 inch wide strips all across the 2800 sf basement concrete floor every 3 feet and install septic pipe into those trenches, then run them to the outside under the foundation with all the pipes sticking up about 3 feet on the outside. Not only would this have ruined the back yard, but it would have undermined my foundation and totally ruined the basement floor, especially in Colorado with our expansive soils. And all of this was only going to cost me $14,000.. He told me I had no choice but to mitigate the problem. I told him he could do it as long as he accepted all legal responsibility for the damage to my foundation and floors, he refused and that’s when I started my research. My buyers were both IT engineers, read the info I had found, and closed without the mitigation. They also accepted the glue now embedded into their oak trim and the damage to the windows and doors. They are also very much alive, still living in the home, and still cancer free.
Luckily, I have a rocket scientist in the family and he’s the one who turned me on to Dr. Cohen and the OISM. He had signed Dr. Robinson’s Anti Kyoto Treaty petition and got a good laugh when I told him about my desk jockey experience. I’m preparing to build his home in Canon City soon and asked him if he wants his home with or without Radon. He wants to keep his Radon.
A note: the local Pueblo Realtor Association decided to stop pushing the radon crap and to just say, if asked, that it might be a health problem and should be left up to the buyers to decide what they want to do. In other words, stay out of it since we don’t want to get sued for wasting buyers money.
I could tell you stories, everything from the time I had a prospective client in my model yelling at me because of my Radon stand, to the time I was told by the local Home Builders Association that I didn’t know what I was talking about , to getting in heated verbal arguments with local real estate agents because I won’t pay to mitigate radon, but don’t get me started.
Best of luck fighting the good fight. Sometimes I feel like I’m living on an island surrounded by liberal Democrats.
http://efn-usa.org
Hey Art and Sandy,
Of course it came in at 18 picocuries, they will always find more pico's over the allowed EPA amount in any home in any part of the country if they test long enough, especially if a relocating company is involved. Are you sure they aren't lying to you? Did you watch the meter on their equipment? How long did it register at 18, or was it 2 for the first 12 hours and then 18 picocuries for all of 2 minutes? Was it just in one room or did they have testers in all of the rooms? I've never been able to get any of them to show me anything about their little electronic testing box, apparently it's technical and forbidden by the Radon gods. You need to re test with a different company and open at least the window closest to their test equipment, if not several windows. Turn the furnace blower motor on to "run" to get good circulation through out the house. You could take the tester outside. That will get rid of the radon. Keep in mind that you don't live without using the doors and windows, bath fans, and the furnace.
You still don't have to mitigate it, don't let anyone tell you that. But, the buyer can use it as an excuse to walk from the contract. I have no doubt they will NOT walk away, since they're getting a steal of a buy on your home and since they will find radon in every house they buy anywhere. I'd tell them, as I do all my clients, to mitigate it themselves if they don't like it, and to do their homework. If they want the house, they'll waive that objection and tell the relo company they want the home, radon included, which they have the legal right to do.
Don't let the same guy that did the test do the fix. You can not trust these people. I have caught 2 testing companies lying to me in the past, that's why I've done so much research on radon ( the first one only wanted to charge me $14,000. and destroy my basement floor in the process). It's a scam and they know it. Also realize, these desk jockeys are very tight with the real estate agents. They all make money off it.
I hope to have at least 18 pico's in my home, I love radon! The medical doctor I sold a home to 3 years ago didn't even want his house tested, as he felt it was a waste of money and time. I talked to 2 other local doctors about radon and they laughed at the suggestion it causes cancer. I was told that our local hospital doesn't even put it on their cancer questionnaire when you enter their hospital.
It's great you sold your home and I hope you did OK on it. Sorry to see you leave so soon but I understand the desire to want to be close the kids, the grand kids are only little once. Chris
--------------------------------------------------------------------
September 16, 2015:
Greetings from Canada. I am a newly certified Rn measurement technologist and am nearing completion of the mitigation course. My background is in construction / facility management and my current venture is the technical services company you see below. I have read with great interest everything on your website, and others, regarding opposite opinions for Rn effects.
The overriding fact I have observed is that almost all of these studies, surveys, etc etc are from the 70's 80's 90's. I am keenly interested in a balanced approach to any information I impart. Please advise if you know of any current studies that support your claims for radiation hormesis benefits, Rn myth etc. Thanks, Dan
Hello Dan,
I just haven’t had much time updating my site regarding radon. I’m a home builder, not a scientist, and I already have proven my point beyond what I care about, that this is another EPA hoax. Just recently, several Democrat Congress members had the guts to suggest that Obama should jail “global warming skeptics”. Last week the state of New York started legal proceedings against Exxon regarding their scientific research for the last 40 years, just because they don’t agree with the President and his minions. If I get too vocal about Radon locally, I will pay the price down at our Health Dept. since they are the ones I have to go to for my septic/building permits. They can make my life very difficult and I’ve had words with their department head. That’s why you don’t see builders getting involved, it’s much safer and cheaper to be quiet, and to just go ahead and mitigate radon. I wish I had kept some screen shots of the EPA’s website back in the early nineties. They started out claiming over 125,000 people a year were dying from radon. Of course, back then they just got laughed at, since not that many people died from lung and breast cancer combined. So they dropped the number to 85k, then down to 60k, 35k, and now it’s about 20k, which is still a fabricated number, as they have no evidence that one person has ever gotten cancer from radon (do you know anyone who absolutely died from radon?). That number, along with intense tax payer money funded advertising, started to make sense to our poorly educated public. Keep in mind that they still can’t force me to mitigate radon in court, because they still can’t prove one of their claims.
I recently asked two doctors, one specialized in cancer, if they thought there was any validity to the EPA’s claims. One said they seriously doubted that that would be possible, and the other said we should be more worried about things that really can cause cancer.
But, FYI, this web site has a great deal more updated information. These are real scientists who know far more than I about radiation, and I trust them far more than our new socialist US government.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
November 7, 2015:
Hello Chris,
Congratulations on your excellent reporting about radon, Prof. Bernard Cohen and the rest of your research on your website: Bryant Builders.
I found your website when looking for references on radon limits for homes. The EFN website works for public education about nuclear energy, radioisotopes for nuclear medicine and nuclear science and low-dose radiation: We currently have 66 articles and PowerPoint Presentations about RADIATION NOTE: Each article has a picture. This would give your website exposure to our 3,900 viewers in 113 countries. It would be a service to many people across the United States. Let me know if you approve.
https://www.efn-usa.org/
John
Hello John,
I had some time to take a quick look at your web site and I am very impressed. I wasn’t sure anyone ever read my site except for a few clients. Feel free to copy and use what ever I have available and thanks for asking first. I’d like to link your site to mine as well. I just responded to a radon tester from Canada and gave him your link. He was wondering why I hadn’t been using any updated info, as if the latest radon stats had changed to favor his testing. It’s so sad to see what has happened to our educational system. I don’t have a background in Science or Physics, but even I have the brains to know not to trust the EPA’s research. I have a feeling you know of Dr. Art Robinson at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. What he went through with his kids when they were at Oregon State University was appalling. A Science professor stole his son’s research, claiming it was his, then sold it. When the University and Politician's refused to do anything about it, Dr. Robinson ran for office. Him and his family were destroyed by the lying liberal media and Democrats and he lost, but the University was eventually forced to reprimand the professor and his son got his research back. Dr. Camen, who died a few years ago, was a professor at OISM and he was the one who came up with Carbon Dating. When intelligent people like these disagree with the EPA, I tend to believe the Scientist’s first.
I no longer have the links to the blog I had found regarding Dr. Cohen. But it was funny reading the emails he was sending to Lynch attempting to get him to debate his research. The couple of times Lynch came out of his University of Iowa cave and tried, he had little success. I’d say Dr. Cohen was several pay grades above Lynch and both sessions ended with Lynch, in typical liberal fashion, calling Cohen names and claiming he was being paid by the coal industry and was stupid, etc., etc.. You might be able to find that on the UoI blogs or maybe Dr. Cohen would respond to your request for info. I’m not sure if he has updated any of his research, as I believe his is getting a bit old, but it would be great if he did.
When people find out what a “Radon Mitigater” does for $2,500 to $3,500., they usually laugh or cry, depending if they spent the money. A cheap inline fan, about 20 feet of pvc pipe, a cord to plug in the fan, a 4” hole drilled into their basement floor, and about 4 hours of labor is what you get. Total cost of material: about $100.00. If anyone you know has had that work done, ask them if they ever retested the house after the fix. Most don’t. That’s why you’ll never know if it worked, especially since once that junk is installed, the real estate agents never test the house again, “cause it’s been fixed”. The only accurate way to test for radon is to leave testing equipment in every room in the house, and for at least 30 days. Even then the readings may not be accurate, but would at least be closer to the true levels you have. This still does not account for peoples lifestyles, how many kids, how long the doors and windows are open, how long do the fans run, etc.. The same home, but with a different family, will show very different levels. No one ever test’s like this, so how do you really know. That’s why the EPA recommends that you don’t put those stupid free test kits in the bathrooms or kitchen (they have exhaust fans in them), and don’t test on a windy day or open the windows or doors, etc.. They do recommend that you put them in the basement right over the floor drain. Hmmmm, I wonder why that’s where all the testers put their test equipment? The last time I went to an “official” EPA Radon public meeting, which cost the tax payers 250k, they handed out an information booklet that looked like a 3rd grade coloring book. That’s what the government thinks the vast majority of American’s reading level is.
I got involved in 1995, when a buyer hired a Home (desk jockey) Inspector. I was told that due to the radon testing, I couldn’t go into my home for 3 days, which turned into 7, into 10, and then 2 weeks. I had work to complete to get it ready to close and decided to take a chance and go in. I was furious. This idiot had used cheap masking tape to seal all the very expensive wood windows and doors with heavy plastic. The tape’s glue had embedded itself into my beautiful oak trim, which ruins wood if it has not been sealed. The plastic was causing damage to the windows due to intense heat building up between the windows and plastic. He had about 5 of those cheap test kits hanging from a string right over the floor drain in the basement. When the report came back, he called to tell me I had a terrible radon problem and he’d have to fix it. His solution was to cut 12 inch wide strips all across the 2800 sf basement concrete floor every 3 feet and install septic pipe into those trenches, then run them to the outside under the foundation with all the pipes sticking up about 3 feet on the outside. Not only would this have ruined the back yard, but it would have undermined my foundation and totally ruined the basement floor, especially in Colorado with our expansive soils. And all of this was only going to cost me $14,000.. He told me I had no choice but to mitigate the problem. I told him he could do it as long as he accepted all legal responsibility for the damage to my foundation and floors, he refused and that’s when I started my research. My buyers were both IT engineers, read the info I had found, and closed without the mitigation. They also accepted the glue now embedded into their oak trim and the damage to the windows and doors. They are also very much alive, still living in the home, and still cancer free.
Luckily, I have a rocket scientist in the family and he’s the one who turned me on to Dr. Cohen and the OISM. He had signed Dr. Robinson’s Anti Kyoto Treaty petition and got a good laugh when I told him about my desk jockey experience. I’m preparing to build his home in Canon City soon and asked him if he wants his home with or without Radon. He wants to keep his Radon.
A note: the local Pueblo Realtor Association decided to stop pushing the radon crap and to just say, if asked, that it might be a health problem and should be left up to the buyers to decide what they want to do. In other words, stay out of it since we don’t want to get sued for wasting buyers money.
I could tell you stories, everything from the time I had a prospective client in my model yelling at me because of my Radon stand, to the time I was told by the local Home Builders Association that I didn’t know what I was talking about , to getting in heated verbal arguments with local real estate agents because I won’t pay to mitigate radon, but don’t get me started.
Best of luck fighting the good fight. Sometimes I feel like I’m living on an island surrounded by liberal Democrats.
http://efn-usa.org