excellent point. My counter would be, for $1500.00 get one installed. Good piece of mind, and house is always safe.
Radon found on inspection
- Thread starter Dingus
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excellent point. My counter would be, for $1500.00 get one installed. Good piece of mind, and house is always safe.
Another thought-- perhaps if you don't want to jeopardize the deal perhaps just ask for a credit towards, say, half the cost of installing one. That way it wouldn't have to be installed by closing and they've only lost the cost of half the installation from their proceeds. That may be easier for them to stomach.
Just so you know, here is a map of the contiguous 48 showing naturally occurring radon levels (notice where most of the red levels are?):
And further -
Iowa has the highest average radon concentrations in the United States due to significant glaciation that ground the granitic rocks from the Canadian Shield and deposited it as soils making up the rich Iowa farmland.[80] Many cities within the state, such as Iowa City, have passed requirements for radon-resistant construction in new homes.
It's all negotiable in Iowa as it should be. You might as well ask for it. I think it's pretty ridiculous that people are saying to walk if they don't do it. It's 1500. The question is would you pay an extra 1500 or more for the house? If so, ask and get what you can get and be happy. If 1500 is the difference between buying or walking away you probably are buying the wrong house. Likewise I think it's stupid for sellers to say while they are advertising that they will not mitigate or negotiate based on mitigation. Just clarify at the purchase agreement stage. If you have two buyers, one that offers an extra 2000 and requests mitigation and one that offers list price but doesn't request it, you've got the makings of a bidding war. why eliminate perfectly good buyers. People get all worked up over this stuff and think we need a law taking out simple and relatively small negotiating points. Guess what, if law dictated sellers always must do it, house prices would reflect it to the effect that it's a wash.
I would be interested to learn who is responsible in a condo or apartment building if tests show excessive radon levels. And do the rules change if the excessive levels are found in only one of the units?
The abstract contains all the HOA stuff and there is nothing regarding radon. It seems to me that the source of a radon problem would be external to a condo unit in common elements and therefore wouldn't be anything an individual owner could mitigate. The HOA would have to agree to fix it. Who pays for it could be a different matter. I would think the condo owner could force the issue to be fixed, but the association may assess the unit affected for the costs, if that makes any sense. I was just wondering if there is anyone with experience fixing radon issues in condo buildings.
If this is directed at me, I have already installed radon mitigation in my home. Incidentally it cost me less than $1000 and it fixed the problem. I have a real time monitor for radon.
I also own a condo unit and was the reason for all my questions.
I have learned one thing through three home purchase and two sales; there's no leverage for realtors to represent you in your best interest. Take an inspector for example. A thorough inspector might ruin a sale. They'd then not be recommended by the realtor again thus hurting their ongoing business. So, at the end of the inspection the home buyer is NOT getting the best inspection. We were screwed when we bought a house in MN. And we were screwed again on different issues here in WV. When I confronted the inspector about whether they evaluated the attic insulation, their comment was "according to WV inspection codes we don't have to do it for house less than 5 years old". Geez. All they needed to tell me was what depth was up there and let me decide. Sadly, our society is leaning towards lies to gain business.
Your radon situation is another one of those where they'd just assume convince you someone else will buy the house without any radon mitigation. Our new home purchase here in West Virginia was faced with radon levels of 14. It's a brand new house with zero radon consideration. The ideal situation is a perfectly sealed basement floor. The next best option is to use an interior drain tile with a sump pump seal. Of course, we'll have to bore holes in our 'finished' basement floors. Until then open windows venting out has reduced it to ~3.
Your radon situation is another one of those where they'd just assume convince you someone else will buy the house without any radon mitigation. Our new home purchase here in West Virginia was faced with radon levels of 14. It's a brand new house with zero radon consideration. The ideal situation is a perfectly sealed basement floor. The next best option is to use an interior drain tile with a sump pump seal. Of course, we'll have to bore holes in our 'finished' basement floors. Until then open windows venting out has reduced it to ~3.
its Iowa, you dig a hole in the ground you're going have radon. I just bought a house that tested at 4.6, and somebody I worked with previously who dabbled in reality a bit said hes seen and heard about 8-12 pci on radon tests before.
you can by a kit that seals and vents the sump pump for about $400 online, neighbor across the street from my parents house did that when they sold a few years ago, parents house has never been tested as it was built and bought before it was really known about/ was a concern.
you can by a kit that seals and vents the sump pump for about $400 online, neighbor across the street from my parents house did that when they sold a few years ago, parents house has never been tested as it was built and bought before it was really known about/ was a concern.
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supposedly causes some sort of cancer/ respiratory issues with prolonged exposure. I'm kind of the same way, we lived how many years before this ever became a concern??
Current house we didn't even have a test done because in my opinion it's a waste of money. We were buying the house radon or no radon.
The problem is the time it takes to do these inspections. It sounds like you want something that is going to test absolutely everything. That's fine. just know that you will probably spend $1-2k dollars to get into the detail that you apparently want. Plus, very few sellers are going to want to spend that much money to ultimately fix all the things that thorough of an investigation is ultimately going to find.
Hey, something we can agree on. I think our house tested at 14 when we sold. Big deal but we did end up giving the buyers half the cost and they eventually did put in the system.
When we bought our house 15 years ago, the radon tested at 16. First pipe didn't get it under 4, so the installer, free of charge added a second pipe, which meant another 50 feet of pvc pipe. Have also heard that you could be outside in Iowa and be at exposure levels of 3.
of course, we also knew that the previous owned died of lung cancer, so it was sort of a no-brained decision to get mitigation. Of course, he also worked in a body shop for a long time, probably before they used masks, so, you know....
of course, we also knew that the previous owned died of lung cancer, so it was sort of a no-brained decision to get mitigation. Of course, he also worked in a body shop for a long time, probably before they used masks, so, you know....