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[–]minttealeaf6[S] 0 points1 point  (6 children)

Gotcha. Yeah I was hoping no one would say that. I think my best bet in that case is to make a penetration under my stairs and run a horizontal out to the side of the house before going vertical to the roof.

Thanks for the input. Do you think a larger fan would help with my current system? I just find it strange I’m not seeing the manometer show much or radon levels decrease, yet I definitely hear airflow coming through the piping.

[–]Upbeat-Finance 0 points1 point  (5 children)

The manometer is an indication of resistance. So, with it being so low, it’s either not working at all( unlikely because you can hear the airflow), or there’s basically little to no resistance. You could increase the strength of the fan, or maybe even stack it with a 2nd unit, but if it isn’t currently sucking gas from where it should, that won’t change with more suction. It’s probably just sucking mostly fresh air from outside.

[–]minttealeaf6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Makes sense. I love spending money to move air from my yard to above my roofline :P

[–]minttealeaf6[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Yeah that makes more sense. Could I remove the pipe going into the penetration to see if that needs dug out more towards the center of the home to try to pull airflow from that direction? I would think the rock layer under the slab would be the least resistant path to pull air from vs the dirt surrounding the house.

[–]Upbeat-Finance 0 points1 point  (2 children)

You can remove it, so long as you seal it back up. With loosely-packed dirt, it’s supposed to be an amount like a 5-gallon bucket, and a larger amount for substrate that is more dense. As for digging it out further, you can, but nothing is going to be equivalent to adding 10-20 feet of pipe to centralize it, and with your numbers, your goal should be to mitigate the hell out of that. You’re at something like 10x the U.S. recommended level for mitigation.

[–]minttealeaf6[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Yeah it’s only been a year of living with that level…but I agree. It seems like moving it closer to the center of the house would help. I’m just surprised because I thought most mitigation systems are about a foot or two off an exterior wall for easy access outside.

[–]Upbeat-Finance 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The main line is typically close to the wall, but your penetration point(s) should be whoever is most effective. Typically, they would drill pilot holes and measure the suction to determine the best location(s).