I personally don’t have much trust in any fan, aside from the big 3, all of which, were tested by our Canadian National Research Council for leakage- especially important in Canada, where our fans, go inside- nothing survives-40 degs!
Stop looking for cheaper alternatives is my word of advice.

The fan not be in the garage if three is a room above because it can not be below a habitable space. If there was no room above the garage it would be ok to put the an in the garage.

Fred Ellrott

Doug others on this list may be more expert at what makes a fan, a "radon fan". Here in Canada we struggled with the same thing, In writing our mitigation standard for existing buildings we ended up striking a secondary working group around this issue ( it was the big three of radon fan manufacturers). I believe that the criteria they came up with was:
1/ it was designated by fan manufacturer as a radon fan (not some sales team but the fan manufacturer)
2/ fan had less than ???? 2% leakage
3/ fan was made of a material that was not subject to breakdown

Garages with overhead rooms above are a tricky subject when it comes to air sealing (very subject to individual trade or tradesman quality of work) and that may be why EPA and AARST have said that fans are not to be located in garages.

Plese add: with rooms above

The original EPA standard was developed out of concern for re-entrancement of the exhaust into the habitable space of the home. The issue was never with the fan leakage as much as the fact that the government said they could not regulate workmanship. Personally, and given the years of experience from our northern constituents, I feel that re-visiting this issue is long overdue.

Well Terry, I have over 3000 systems, with fans in the basement and rim discharges and every one, is below 100Bq m3 or 2.7
Some were as high as 20k
So if that helps, stir the thoughts.
One note, stick with the big 3, there is a fan, out there, from another manufacturer, that does leak!!

While i agree with Rob on many things, I have one very cautionary note: Us northern cousins in the mitigation field are (currently) very heavily weighted to existing tradesman, that changes methodology as does the new focus of training and exam to communication testing/fan selection.

Trades and something that nobody else knows how to do (communication testing/fan selection) adds value to what we do. Trades are seldom hesitant to charge for their time /knowledge and ability to stay in business. That is one of the reasons we have been able to hold pricing at a significantly higher level than our US cousins.

Indoor fans without quality of workmanship/materials is a significant risk in the radiation world.

I won't make a comment about fan placement but I can make some statements about fans used for radon mitigation. Leakage of the fan housing is one issue but there are many other considerations. A big one for our company was noise. If you are installing a fan inside the dwelling it must be an even bigger consideration for you. I tested the Suncourt fans 10 years ago and the vibration hence noise was significantly louder than the common radon fans. Maybe it has improved in that regard, maybe not. You can see the performance graph for this fan on my website.
There are new fans from all the manufacturers as well as new fan suppliers that I have been trying to keep up on my website so you might check them out if you haven't recently. If you know of any fans not listed let me know.
http://www.wpb-radon.com/radon_fan_performance.html#aTF104
Bill

Bill - your data is extremely helpful. Any consideration to measuring noise curves also as noise is a concern for attic and even outside installs sometimes. Vibration is another but not sure you could do little more than provide subjective reporting.
Jim