Radon be gone

Ok, let's put this one to bed.....
The guy showed up and did the recon. Suck from the laundry room which is up the end of the basement that is nearest to the carport/garage and vent out above its roof.
Pretty straightforward. About $1600 and almost a full day's work.

Here then is where I got it wrong.
They don't suck from floor level. They don't suck the house air out.
Radon does not pool at the bottom near the floor; it's not heavier than air. I said as much in my first blog. What I failed to read or comprehend clearly is that they drill (in my case) a 5-inch core hole through the slab. Then hand dig out the dirt - in my case, mostly sand with smallish rocks and dirt, about a 1-foot squarish hole, and then make the 4-inch pipe go about 5-7 inches into the hole, then seal around the hole at slab level to make it air tight.
This results in pulling air through the dirt/ground in every direction into that vent.
Over time, even the far reaches of my slab and yes, the neighbors driveway and the footpath, all the air around my house is getting sucked down and up and away.

The interesting thing is that they have found they don't need to put the hole/vent in the middle of the house, it all gets sucked under the slab in every which way the air can find a way to wiggle into the vent.
The OTHER really interesting thing is that he said I might find the humidity goes down after about a month, as it will not just pull Radon, but also dampness, as the dry summer air gets pulled into and under my slab.

Okay, so what does the whole system look like?

You can clearly see the black goop (it's rubbery dry, I'm guessing silicon) at floor level.
Very neat and tidy. Dan can build a shelf around it when he comes and stays in November.
Ok, yeah, I see the hands go up... what's that red thing on the side....

It shows the pressure difference across the fan.
One end is open to the air in the laundry, at 1 atmosphere, and the other end is connected to the tube, which extends upward and ends on the other side of the fan. So this is the inches of water column of suck across the fan. It's not accurate, it does not need to be. Hence, me marking it when it's all a new and fresh install. What we are looking for is it not to move in a year, in two years, or in 10 years.
And yes. I'm still sniffing around for an electronic one with an analog output that I can put into my home monitoring system... but not looking to spend much money. I can easily enough poke my nose in the laundry and see this pretty quick.

The grey box the fan is fed from is simply a surge protector. Nothing more.
You can hear it run, but sorta have to listen for it. Glad it's not in the house. They were not allowed to put it in the laundry; fans have to be outside any living spaces.

The vent sticks about a foot above the roofline. No photo needed really.

And that's it.
The guy is coming back in 2 days to drop off his radon sensor, and he leaves it for 48 hours.
My sensor is already falling... Let's take a look at the one-week graph...

The dotted line shows the weekly average of 2.0 pC/L.
Yes, it's been low before, but unlike in the past, this time it should not be bouncing back.
Current reading is 1.1 pC/L. It will never get or stay on zero, and I am thrilled with 1. If we can keep it around there, Freddy and I will sleep much better once we finally finish the basement enough to sleep down there.

Ok, so I'm sure I will follow up with a wee little blog in a month or so and perhaps something in the winter since I'm told it will often rise in the winter since the house is all closed up for months at a time... but over all, this should be the last big Radon blog.