Steven and all; I was not advocating for service agreement that did not pay me, i am advocating to offer a service that includes a annual certified test (alpha track) and a equipment check, Fan is warrantied by the manufacturer through us for five years, labour is only warrantied for 1 year. We provide the service for a fee. Home is continuously being tested pick up radon test drop off new one inspect the fan is running and at same utube setting. Mail off test device email them the results. Who are they going to recommend when their friend needs a radon mitigator? When they move across town who are they going to use? Alarm goes off they call if it is -20 for 4-10 days. My people know what to say................... if alarm goes off and its not -20 we send a service person out. if system is frozen we install epdm insulation in attic and above the roof and install self regulating heat trace on the piping. if we offered it as an upgrade and were turned down at time of install we charge for time and materials. if we did not offer it it is my companies fault and i have to eat the cost. i want to offer customer service in a way that keeps customers recommending me to friends neighbours even Aunt Millie who they do not even like. it is the cheapest form of marketing i can do.

BTW the Mercedes dealership did none of the work under warranty as i have too many miles on my sprinter to qualify ( and boy do they know how to charge for their parts and labour) while they were very professional about it nothing lasts forever and it is a cost of doing business. They are not one and done business.

I just took our Mercedes van in to be serviced. Why? Because the van automated system said it was time for a service check. Do you want a recurring business model or a one and done business model........
With alarms going in........ you offer to change out alarm as it is past it's service life. (the dealership makes more in selling service than they do in selling cars), ask anyone who owns a dealership. I had dealership call me on my way home to ask if they could change the diesel filters as they were at the end of their service life. I don't want to tell you what it cost in Canadian dollars, what am going to do as a business that relies on that truck say no? Yes service is messy if you don't have people who do it, it messes up schedule and doesn't allow for scheduling your crews to do what is your primary business installing systems but if you had 2000 systems installed and you could sell a 200$ system check with upsell of replacing parts (alarms) and a ongoing yearly long term test to ensure radon system was functional how many places could be hit in a day? 5-10? that's another 1000-2000$/ day for a man and a truck or fill in work if you are not busy 5 days a week. Alarms protect people who would not know that the great system you installed had quit working.

Sorry i lapsed into plumbing jargon rather than polite society terminology. What i meant to say was: i would like to thank and support all of those people who volunteered their time to create these standard documents and they will only get better if those that use the document on a daily basis can step up and get involved in improving it. I would caution anyone who is considering volunteering that successful committee work is the art of compromise and reminding yourself continually that the standard is here to serve the general public not to serve the companies who use it every day.

Until you have lived and volunteered on a committee trying to write a standard, please don't bitch to loudly. I know their are parts of our Canadian CGSB standards that i really don't like and i think are nuts but that is part of the committee process. i reallly hated some parts that we the working groups spent hours on that got changed in the final draft to something that the working groups did not agree to......... but as a whole i think we created something that served Canadians better that what we had before. i would like to thank my working group chairs who stuck at stick handling it all through.

Andrew I as a mitigator disagree with your statement as someone that has sat on 2 working groups to get a standard developed for radon mitigation here in Canada. it becomes a delicate balance of what you want Vs what hill you are willing to die on. Sometimes things are traded at the table to get consensus. I do not know but does the standard include insulation of piping when exposed to freezing?

What good is the system you installed last summer and tested low ie 2.5 pCi on a summer time short term test. You now have a client that believes in you recommends you to friends and family. Standards are written to protect the public not to protect contractors from client phone calls when systems fail that they paid good money for. if during winter months, the that same house is it is now getting up to 6.7 because the fan was not properly sized for winter stack effect, yes it is better than the 20 pCi that they had before. You now have a client that loses belief in you and will tell everyone they meet that you are not their radon mitigator of choice. Standards are written to protect the public not to protect contractors from phone calls when systems fail, that the clients paid good money for.

I think your old astm code required insulation where piping is exposed to freezing and i would be very surprised if this is not in current document. If it is not maybe alarms were traded off in the committee for the removal of insulating piping when exposed to freezing.

...........Yes inside systems take more time and cost more and should be insulated in attic space ......... garage systems should be insulated and heat traced in cold areas........ and i believe outside systems should not be installed where winter temperatures can go below -20 for significant periods of time unless they are heat traced and insulated. All of these are upsells in my market and I clearly state that these outside systems are subject to freezing and void warranty on fan and that the SSD system could be down a significant amount of time during winter months. i very seldom end up installing a exterior system.

We cannot get two a day when doing garage routed systems but get to charge significantly more.

We still install fans for VOC systems on the exterior of buildings but take the appropriate precautions to prevent freezing.

So i said i would post what we are using as a self regulating heating cable on our commercial VOC systems here it is from amazon.ca
https://www.amazon.ca/regulating-Industrial-Drawings-Available-Temperature/dp/B07VW6HKN1/ref=sr_1_5?crid=8KQ1QTVJ007Q&dchild=1&keywords=self+regulating+heat+trace&qid=1608583282&sprefix=self+regulating%2Caps%2C226&sr=8-5
We added a plug that would shut down power at above 50 degrees F.
https://www.amazon.ca/Frost-King-099000-Self-Regulating-Thermostat/dp/B0182HW816/ref=sr_1_20?crid=8KQ1QTVJ007Q&dchild=1&keywords=self+regulating+heat+trace&qid=1608583282&sprefix=self+regulating%2Caps%2C226&sr=8-20????

We just wrapped the flat cable up the pipe and covered with a black EPDM 1/2 inch thick insulation (it is waterproof) and covered it all with a white pvc pipe jacketing sealed the joints looks good and my client and engineer was happy.

Health Canada has researched both of these on band joist depressurization, i have installed hundreds if not several thousand band joist discharges over last 10 years most with discharges in in 5000 Bq/m3 if not 10,000's of Bq/m3 and many where my grab sampler maxed out at the 37,000 Bq/m3. Because of cold and insulation and vapour barrier we may have different construction techniques, but have never had a post test that came back high due to re-entrainment.
On my commercial VOC systems in colder area's we use EPDM black insulation and a self regulating strap heater on pipe. i will post description in another post. i have to go deliver my customer Santa baskets. Merry Christmas All

a view from the north (Canada)
In 2005 while starting my radon mitigation business in Southern Ontario, Canada i swore that i would never install a SSD system that did not follow EPA guidance. As we had no training for Canadians yet my training was NRPP certification. My favourite systems were garage roof discharge's and had installed many exterior fans and above second story eave discharges.

My clients in the north (we service a 5 hrs driving distance from Toronto) were seeing lots of freeze ups on exterior systems and some uninsulated garage systems. I have now converted to almost 100% in basement fan systems with horizontal discharges at the rim joist, and other than the odd fan quitting on us little to no service calls. interestingly most fans that are going to quit do so in first 5 years ( we had one last month that went 1 day before five year warranty).

I would highly recommend that the ANSI AARST standards look at the Canadian Standards where we do not recommend exterior fans or uninsulated piping in ashre zones 6 and above. We do insist on schedule 40 pipe. It is very difficult to design everything in one large country where you have such varied climates and construction methods. In Ontario it is very unusual to find a slab on grade home (if you have to dig foundations down 6 plus feet anyway why not give them a basement) yet finding a basement in some parts of southern BC is rare.

We used to strongly recommend radon alarms (safety siren) but we experienced so many failures on bench testing them that we quit recommending them. We have talked about starting to recommend the air things monitor that glows green and red but with such little markdown available for bulk purchases have not implemented this in our mitigation procedures.

if you are doing a partial slab you simply sandbag or water bag (Pool Bags) the open side, my commercial smoke machine (stage smoke) by it a music store, only seems to do about 1000 to 1500 sq ft at a time. on my next project i will use a corn oil smoker as apparently it will do 20,000 sq ft or more. apparently Corn oil can show up as a VOC in later testing so you need to be cautious.

I chose the SS version of the Ridgid Vac because i wanted my tools to be something the homeowner did not have....... we insert a 1/2 all thread rod in the back wheel set up so it will take the abuse and wieght of gravel from sucking out pit. we carry a number of spare filters so we can always put on a clean one for communication testing. Has anyone tried the Pro level of the rigid vacuum? What kind of Vacuum can you develop?

Wow that is a mitigators vacuum. i look forward to other posts, my SS shop Vac delivers 37 inches and about 120 cfm and been looking around for something that delivers a higher " of vacuum.

Great Job to Pam and team!!! For those of you who are not aware Pam is a founding member of CARST (she lead the founding committee) and serves as the ExO for CARST and C-NRPP. Canada would not be in the position it is with radon without her leadership.

Thank you Gloria. Sometimes i must be reminded to look for the forest and why we got into this upside down world. It just hurts to see homeowners not get what they deserve from a quality contractor who cares enough to know what they need to do to protect them from this invisible killer.
So I ask the question again (a bit differently i hope) if big brother "Government", is not the solution then what is the solution?
Is driving more public awareness is just driving more business to the bad contractor because they will always get their % of the work?

Thank you we have been leading (I think) but it feels like it is an uphill lonely trudge.

To my US cousins and brothers what does work in a free market society? Building code is today's solution to yesterday's bad builders who cut corners putting profit/laziness above quality. Radon control is not rocket science, it's just building science and nuclear science rolled into one. Does anyone have a solution that they know or believe's will truly work to control bad/ ignorant contractors. we all know that most of them will eventually wash out of the market but before they do they will typically drive prices/ quality down. Is big brother the only solution?

Adam i am advocating for more controls in Canada rather than the none we have now , yes having building permits and inspections being required or another body overlooking your work costs something but it costs everyone in the industry and every homeowner the same amount.
We in our industry deal in control of radiation in someones home or business, we deserve to make a good living doing it and i am happy to have someone else who is educated look over my teams work any day.
Our clients are not experienced in radiation control, building methods or stack effect.
In theory, oversight harmonizes what we all do and allows oversight to teach the mitigators who have fallen into bad habits what they need to change.

I am not avocating for a system that provides costs with no oversight/inspection of work installed.

We use the radon eye to determine mitigation worker exposure to radiation during the time we are setting up protection for workers (introducing outside air) to their workplace. Many mitigation company's could get themselves in some significant financial trouble if they are not tracking worker exposure from a NORM (Canada) or TERANORM (US) and get a claim later down the road they have no defense.

As an Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) i would never use or defend using a 1 hr test to determine annual radon exposure. But i can defend using a 1 hr test to defend what a workers exposure is during that 1 hour. Otherwise the rules say i must record the highest number for entire period worker is exposed. Radiation safety always wants us to reduce worker exposure to as low as possibly achievable (ALARA). Most work days i am able to reduce recorded worker exposure number by 1-10 x.

For example: A home is recorded at 3000 Bq and we work on site for 5 hours without radon eye we would have to record 15000 Bq.hrs as the worker exposure, but because we record it using radon eye 1 hr at 3000 Bq =3000 <a href="http://Bq.hr" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Bq.hr</a> and 4hrs at 30 Bq = 120 Bq.h totals to 3120 Bq.hrs of exposure that day for that worker. that is a reduction of recorded exposure of 4.8 times. This also defends that we are using a method to reduce worker exposure ( introducing outside air) this means we are proving in our paperwork that we are successfully attempting to protect our workers from a radiation source.

Doing testing for worker exposure (and reducing that level) always makes the clients know we believe in protection from the radiation from radon (I only use the term radiation when talking to client) even when introducing outside air when it is -20 outside.

We also use baseline number to compare to under slab grab sample (using a GM 1-2) if sub slab levels are not 10 times the in house sample we know we have to look for significant openings if they are 20 -100 times we know slab is very tight.

Grab sampler is my best friend, to convert the reluctant spouse/partner to a radon advocate, show them a 22,000 Bq sub slab they instantly "get" what we are doing is important, to their families health and they are now quite willing to "go after" their friends to test for radioactivity from radon in their homes.

Use the science to create trust, people buy and recommend based on trust.

We here in Canada are as yet unlicensed and that makes it the wild west while we have regulations and now a standard to follow it is difficult to compete with much cheaper uncertified individuals who do not know what they are doing, I looked it up on the internet and go!

This leaves the expense and headaches to our national association that can do very little to control non members. The expense still falls back to the good guys who care enough to be certified. i think we are missing the point when we in the industry talk radon, radon, radon, when what you might be saying is "the radiation from radon", this puts the homeowner and my staff a little bit more on alert that what we deal with day in and day out is radiation in a home or workplace.

In my opinion we should have some rules and oversight from Government or another body that understands what we (the good guys) do on a daily basis. I regularly invite health department / lung association/cancer society/building officials/property inspectors to go with our crew for a day.

I am not sure if licencing is a barrier to uncertified work, it may be, the cost is certainly low enough and the reporting seems to simple, i do not see how the state will fund radon inspection in any real way at these $. That all said I would welcome it here in Ontario, Canada.

Well written and factually correct! A poster child for a radon awareness article. thanks for sharing Bill