Radon Testing & Mitigation near you

Generally no. ARPANSA's nationwide survey of more than 3300 homes puts the average concentration of radon in Australian homes at about 10 becquerels per cubic metre — less than in many other countries, against a global average indoor value of around 40. ARPANSA describes average Australian levels as only slightly above outdoor air and of minimal concern to health. That is a materially different situation from parts of North America and Europe where routine testing is standard advice.

Routine pre-purchase radon testing is not standard practice in Australia, and given the national survey results there is usually no good reason to add it to a building and pest inspection. If something specific about the property makes you want to ask — substantial occupied below-ground space, a known local geology, an unusual former land use — the sensible first step is to contact ARPANSA, which holds the national measurement and mapping work, rather than to engage a contractor who has an interest in the answer.

Two things combine there and largely do not here. The geology in many regions produces more radon, and the housing form provides a place for it to accumulate: occupied, heated basements that are below ground for the whole of a long heating season, with the building drawing air upward through the structure. Australia builds predominantly on slab-on-ground or on ventilated subfloors, without heated basements as a standard housing form, and our measured concentrations reflect that. Radon advice written for those markets should not be applied to an Australian house without question.

The principle is to stop soil gas entering the occupied space and to dilute what does. That means sealing significant penetrations between the ground and the living area, ventilating any under-building space properly, and in higher-concentration cases actively extracting air from beneath the slab so that soil gas is drawn away rather than into the building. All of it should follow a long-term measurement establishing that there is something to mitigate. Mitigation quoted without that measurement is a solution looking for a problem.

Ask two questions first: what about this specific building suggested radon, and how long will the detector be in place. If the answer to the first is nothing in particular, and the answer to the second is anything measured in minutes or hours, decline. Radon concentration varies so much with weather, ventilation and occupancy that only a long-term average means anything, and an instant reading during an inspection cannot produce one. Your inspection money is better spent on moisture, drainage and the roof.