Radon

H

Highlander01

Guest
I'm relatively new to the country, heard a lot about Radon, do builders have to provide evidence that a radon 'barrier' has been installed at the foundation level - a bit ignorant of the whole thing here, can you please advise.

Thanks
 
No, nor do they have to with anything. It is within the building regulations, and on self build, the engineer should be verifying it has been completed at groundwork stage.

will supply more detailed information and test-kits. Hope this helps.
 
So if the builder says they have and it subsequently turns out they haven't, is there any recourse?
 
Should be

Maps on the website show badly affected areas. Recall from Kerryman that high levels for eg around Castleisland, but it appears Tralee also a hotspot.
 
Thanks Vanilla,

Since July 1998, every new house is required to incorporate some degree of radon preventive measures at the time of construction in accordance with the revised . The degree of protection required is dependent upon whether or not the site is located within a High Radon Area.
Click to expand...

HL,

My builder installed a radon barrrier as evidenced by a small green plastic vent at the back of the house.

Im not sure what recourse you have where a builder claims to have conformed with the building regulations and has not.

Was your house checked by an Engineer at the various stages of construction?

aj
 
If the builder has put the radon barrier in correctly then it should be sticking out from between the blockwork, I think it should be 1 row below the Damp Proof Course.
 
The only way to be sure if the barrier is working or not is to get radon detectors for the house as soon as you move in, after 3 months they can be checked and you will see if you have a high reading or not. If it is high then usually you (or hopefully the builder) have to install a fan system to draw the radon out of the vents under the house. Lots of barriers are put in but damaged in the process rendering them useless, I have also heard of one person who installed the vents to make it look like the barrier was also there but never installed the barrier. My house had a high radon level (built pre regulations) and it cost me £2,500 few yrs ago to rectify it, learned a lot about it in the process & unfortunately having seen it done I realised I could have done it myself, its' not beyond the realms of competent DIYer. Several houses in brand new estates locally had extremely high levels of radon despite having barriers installed, more than likely because they were damaged on installation, one tear or hole in the barrier defeats the purpose. I brought up the subject at local residents meeting and several of my neighbours had their houses tested and were also high. Two of them did the work themselves and saved a lot of money.
 
if the house is Homebond the radon barrier should be
installed and inspected by the Homebond inspector
(not very vigorous inspections I'm told though),
and it's also taken care of in the building regs
 
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