Bottomless & wondering... referring to a old clay basement sump basin. Is this set up OK? Radon?
Greetings,
We have a old clay sump basin about 16 inch inside diameter, 24 inch depth, it has no bottom. (basin must have been installed when the house was built in 1940s, but not sure). In the basin, there is a layer of large gravel (about 1.5 inch ), and solid cinder block that sits on gravel and pump secured to the cinder block.
Last fall when we had large amount of rain (in NW CT)… sump pump did its job, and we did not get any water inside the basement.
After speaking with few neighbors, I learned that, they all had water entering from all four sides of their basements, but mine did not.
In my case…I am guessing the water came in to the sump basin from the bottom of it, and it sure works much better than my wonderful neighbors whom had to deal with water coming in from all sides, then water going in to the sump basin.
I am wondering having no bottom on the sump basin would allow any types of gases that form in the ground like radon to enter to the basement from the bottom of the sump basin?
Thanks!
Comments
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There's different ways to install sump pumps.
Some have a plastic pit with piping draining into it. Others have a slot cut around the floor that directs water into the pit. The pits can be steel, clay, plastic etc.
The house I grew up in had two pits with just gravel in the bottom and the pumps sat on bricks and in that situation they worked very well, so well that it needed 3 pumps to keep up at times. But in other situations where perhaps the ground doesn't perk very well it may not work at all. If the ground doesn't perk you need to get the water into the pits some other way.In my own basement I installed two pits on opposite ends of the basement that have plastic bottoms and a ton of holes drilled in the sides, I then dumped a ton of small gravel all around the sides of the pits. This was just how I felt like doing it and I didn't have to dig as deep as I didn't need to line the bottom with gravel. The gravel is there to help stop dirt / mud from getting into the pit. It's basically a coarse filter.
I've also heard of basements being sealed well enough they have the pit sealed to keep ground water out of it and only allow water above a certain level in. I've personally never worked with this, so I don't really have an opinion but some claim it works great. My objective was always to pull the water table down well below the floor but that may not be practical, or even possible in some situations.
As far as Radon, modern setups have covers over the pit and they're often vented to the outdoors. That's a separate subject. I've heard of just venting the pit outside, I've also heard of piping them into a radon fan to pull a negative pressure on the pit. If you have concerns of radon there's nothing stopping you from adapting some kind of cover to the pit and venting it outside.
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment1 -
You will have no idea if you have "Radon Daughters" which is the proper term entering through your homes sump water or the ground in the basement until you have a Radon tester placed in your basement where it is simply located in an accessible area and left for a time and them mailed in to a radon testing laboratory.
Please check with your counties health department to learn more.
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Torrington area, if I recall, @LS123 ?
Amaazing how well the old stuff works, isn't it?
Unless you have really sealed up your basement from draughts, I doubt that you have a radon problem — but Torrington Area Health can help you out further on that.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England1 -
Thanks @Jamie Hall , @leonz , @ChrisJ !
Yes things that were made while back always work! and love it!
I forgot to mention that there is a lid on the basin, its not air tight. There are four good size windows with window wells that we frequently open to get fresh air ( except during supper cold and windy days during winter.) Basement is not air tight and gets air in. Will be reaching out to Torrington Area Health…Looked up Redon test kits at Lowes and Home Depot too…like the First Alert test kit. Also found some cool Redon test meters online. Seems very affordable. Planing on keeping a Redon test meter just to satisfy my curiosity… Thank you all!
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Radon daughters, now called Radon progeny are what Radon gas breaks down into and some of them are what's really dangerous.
As far as I know, no one tests for the progeny? They test for Radon gas no?
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment1 -
It is simple enough to test for Radon or have a company do it for you. Why not?
it is also fairly easy to mitigate with a few holes in the slab and a fan system.
My son had that done on a home he bought when it failed the home inspection due to radon gas levels.
Bob "hot rod" Rohr
trainer for Caleffi NA
Living the hydronic dream1 -
Funny radon story for everyone.
My son works at a place where they make electric car and heat pump fuel out of uranium. Lots of security. Everyone and everything gets scanned when leaving the plant. Occasionally, when someone leaves, the scanner alerts. Not because they are Johnny Cash building a home reactor one fuel rod at a time, but because a couple rarely used basement areas of the plant have low levels of radon. The radon absorbs into their clothes and occasionally sets off the alarm when they leave. So they air out their clothes for a bit and then re-scan.
If there is radon beneath your home the way to mitigate is to depressurize the area underneath the basement slab. Done with a radon fan. The sump pit gets a cover that is sealed to the floor.
First step is to get a radon test.
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Yeah,
The reason I haven't done anything is all of my crawl spaces and basement floor is dirt.
That, combined with the stone foundation at least in my eyes, makes fixing radon not an easy fix. Creating negative pressure in the basement will just draw more in.Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment0 -
Like anything else, how much one should spend on mitigation depends on the risk. Is there high levels of radon under the home and you spend 23 hours a day in the home? Or are there low levels of radon under the home, and you spend 8 hours a day in the home? Cheapest solution is to open the windows.
You could do two tests. One in the basement, and one in the bedroom.
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Do a long term test. The real estate tests are quick because they want the deal to move quickly but they can have a false positive if there is an occasional peak that you happen to test during or miss a peak that happens at certain times of year or under certain conditions. The average of either may be acceptable or unacceptable respectively but the short term test will miss that.
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Here is a link to the test kits recommended by the US EPA. They offer both long and short term kits. . Also check with your state and local health departments as they may offer these services for free.
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I said above, give Torrington Area Health a ring — 890.486.0436.
Honestly, unless you've tightened up your basement a lot, I'd be mightily surprised if there was a problem…
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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Unless you're in a uranium mine, the dose level from ground leach radon is negligible. You'd catch more internal counts from eating some bananas (K40) or a bag of Brazil nuts (Ra 226).
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.
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Seems like a good portion of the houses around here have been getting radon mitigation systems when they are sold for about the past 25 years or so and most of them are pre wwii construction so they aren't tight at all.(it would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between which ones get a mitigation system and the time of year that they are sold)
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The salt mine where I spent two decades of my life had dangerous levels of Radon in the exhaust air.
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Operative word being "mine". Radon is heavy and will collect at the bottom of shafts. Some U miners asphyxiated due to collected noble gases. Rn and Xe.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.1 -
Doesn't surprise me a bit. Everyone seems to be terrified of Radon, and it's an easy upsell with a huge profit margin.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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Who's upselling? No one involved wants to delay the deal for a month while a mitigation system is installed.
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The levels they want are the same as outside now from I've heard.
I have no idea what is and isn't safe, I'll admit that but for my own home I've decided to ignore what others are doing in my area for now.
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment1 -
Ah. But you see, you tell the buyer that there may be a Radon problem and the sale gets put on hold, so the seller agrees to install a remediation system (or put the money to do it in escrow) so the sale can go through. And, of course, for a slightly higher fee we can rush the job to make the sale work…
You can pull the same racket with asbestos or lead pipes or knob and tube wiring…
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
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No amount of Radon exposure is safe.
My sister in law was required to install a radon mitigation system/ventilation system to deal with solve the radon problem that they found before she could sell the home as the home was built on a shelf foundation of limestone bedrock. The local bank that I did business with for 54 years found that the branch location had a radon exposure problem and they had to install a huge air exchange system to mitigate the radon exposure condition.
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I hate to tell you, it's literally everywhere.
Including outside.
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
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I think the mitigation installers want to
NJ Steam Homeowner.
Free NJ and remote steam advice: https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/new-jersey-steam-help/
See my sight glass boiler videos: https://bit.ly/3sZW1el1 -
"Radon in air is ubiquitous (existing or being everywhere at the same time). Radon is found in outdoor air and in the indoor air of buildings of all kinds. The EPA recommends homes be fixed if the radon level is 4 pCi/L (picocuries per liter) or more. Because there is no known safe level of exposure to radon, the EPA also recommends that Americans consider fixing their home for radon levels between 2 pCi/L and 4 pCi/L.
"The average indoor radon concentration for America’s homes is about 1.3 pCi/L. It is upon this national average indoor level that the EPA based its estimate of 21,000 radon-related lung cancers a year. The average concentration of radon in outdoor air is .4 pCi/L or 1/10th of EPA's 4 pCi/L action level."
I've had recent experience with radon and a home sale. We sold my mother-in-law's circa-1960s house last year. Per a 2016 law in our county, a radon test is required before completing a home sale (by either the seller or the buyer). The house had been vacant and the radon level was 18. Although it was not required for the sale, we installed a radon mitigation system. It took a day and did not hold things up. There was no upselling and we didn't feel like anyone was using scare tactics.
Here and here are interesting articles from our friend Allison Bailes, PhD, author, teacher, and building science consultant.
President
HeatingHelp.com
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That's just not true. It's based on what's called the "linear no threshold model" which has no statistical basis.
Worth the 10 bucks if you really want to get into the weeds on low dose exposures.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.3 -
I'm definitely reading that.
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment1 -
Don't get me going on the statistical problems — or scientific problems — with the linear no threshold model approach. Just don't.
Br. Jamie, osb
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England3 -
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
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You honestly need to know more about this issue PLEASE.
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I've worked with radioactives for years as my job. I really think I'm okay with my knowledge base.
Trying to squeeze the best out of a Weil-McLain JB-5 running a 1912 1 pipe system.3 -
@Erin Holohan Haskell , would you please move this discussion to "Indoor Air Quality" section. Thank you!
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Of course.
President
HeatingHelp.com1 -
The part I find curious is @leonz is big into burning coal.
Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment1 -
I burn eastern mined anthracite rice coal because I cannot obtain the much less expensive 10 dollar per ton oiled Sub Bituminous stoker Coal from the State of Wyoming or the State of Montana for my coal stoker boiler.
I burn coal because suburban propane let my oil tank run out of fuel 4 different times in the dead of a New York State winter prior to 2015 using automatic delivery.
I burn coal because my old home is poorly insulated and in the heating season I would use a gallon per hour and a 275 gallon tank of K-1 dyed kerosene oil would only last nine days.
I burn Anthracite coal because the Reillo oil burner I was sold by suburban propane is so old I can no longer obtain parts for it.
I burn anthracite coal because after 33 years of burning wood and coal I decided I wanted to burn coal only after I fell and had my nose broken while moving firewood.
I burn Anthracite rice coal because my old firewood dealer was/is buying cull logs for 33 dollars per ton, and marking up the poorly spilt seasoned and unseasoned firewood he sells almost 800% in some years.
I burn Anthracite rice coal because no one sells seasoned or unseasoned firewood by the ton(which is legal by the way) where they could still make lots of money and have even more firewood customers.
I burn Eastern mined Anthracite Coal because K-1 Kerosene oil cannot keep my poorly insulated home warm enough.
I have an above ground 275 gallon oil tank plumbed as a top fed system with a minor amount of old kerosene in it I would like to sell and have removed.
The one thing I learned growing up and working in my parents businesses is you never screw over your customers and if you do you lose business.
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