4 June 2018

Spent much of the day in the house attic wearing a respirator.  Again you wonder, what does that have to do with building a barn or a stone wall?  The answer, again, is nothing.  But flash back to the end of May 2014 when, at Tom Whittaker’s suggestion, I put a holey PVC pipe under the basement concrete slab “just in case” we ever had a radon problem.  Then in May 2016, when the rest of the house plumbing was installed, we ran 3″ PVC pipe from that under-slab holey pipe up to the attic.  I also ran a dead-end electrical wire up into attic “just in case”.  Well, for the last two winters we’ve been testing the air in the utility room for radioactivity.  The first winter was with no radon abatement, ‘cause the pipe was capped off in the attic.  The test results letter that came back from the Vermont Department of Health in March 2017 started off, “We’re all going to die, but with the radon levels in your house, you’re going to die sooner.”  Actually, the letter reported that we had a radon gas measurement of 13.4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) of indoor air, rather higher than the 4.0 pCi/L maximum recommended level.  Not good news!  So, last summer Tom Morrissey (remember Uncle Tom?) and I uncapped the PVC pipe and ran it through the roof on the north side of the house.  Doing that established what’s known as a passive radon abatement system.  Tested the air quality again this past winter.  We got the test results in early May.  This time the letter just said, “Die!”  No, no, the letter really said we now have 21.9 pCi/l, a 63% increase in radon gas level.  Obviously, something ain’t kosher.  Equally obviously, we now need an active abatement system (aka an in-line fan that sucks contaminated air from beneath the slab (remember the holey pipe?) and exhausts it out the roof pipe).  But before that can be installed, I need to build a walkway, above the 14″ of attic cellulose insulation, from the access hatch over to the radon pipe, plus wire in an attic light and 110 volt outlet.  So, shoveled a path through the cellulose (hence the respirator), took necessary measurements and did a back-of-the-envelope design, then Shlomo and I went to Goodro’s for lumber.  Always a fun time… and dogs love trucks!  The rest of the day was spent making sawdust crafting the saddles that will support the walkway… and tracking cellulose insulation all over the carpets that I shampooed two days ago.  It’s a good thing Chree is over in Maine visiting her parents this week!