Family firm keeps radon on the run

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- For Bill Carlson, radon gas is a family enterprise.

He, his wife and two sons own Healthy Homes LLC, a St. Cloud, Minn.-based radon mitigation company. For around $1,200 to $1,300, they install systems that pipe the carcinogenic, radioactive gas out of homes.

"You're helping people," said Carlson, 45. "There's a pretty neat side of it. And the customer is making a much healthier environment for their family, and for peanuts."

The Carlsons got into the business about six years ago, after radon was detected in the basement of a home they were selling. Carlson and the home buyer agreed to split the cost of fixing the problem. While at work, the installer mentioned to Carlson that he usually performed three radon mitigations a week, at a price of about $1,800 apiece.

"That sounded like a pretty darned good opportunity to me," Carlson said. "My son was about to graduate college, so he went to training after graduation and got certified."

Minnesota 's geology makes its homes particularly at risk for high radon levels. "The glaciers came through and cut the heck out of everything, leaving stuff like uranium everywhere in the soil," Carlson said.

Radon is colorless, odorless, and for the most part completely misunderstood by the public, he said.

Some people call up asking for a radon mitigation even though they don't need one, just because other folks in their neighborhood have high levels, Carlson said. Radon levels can vary widely from home to home on a street, depending on what's in the soil beneath.

"I end up saying, 'Wait a minute, you don't need to get your home mitigated if there's a problem in your neighborhood. You need to get mitigation if there's a problem in your home,' " Carlson said.

On the other extreme are people with potentially hazardous levels of radon in their houses who take no action at all.

Carlson estimates that as many as 50 percent of his customers knew about high radon in their homes but delayed months, or years, before calling him. Much of the time it's money concerns, he figures. But there's also a certain lack of worry that can occur in response to a threat you physically can't detect.

"When we do go out, generally mom is very concerned about it and I've had dad say if it weren't for her, you wouldn't be here," he said.

The work is fairly simple. Usually they drill a hole beneath a home's foundation, into the soil, and then attach piping that allows the radon gas seeping from that hole to rise through the house and out through a hole in the attic.

But Carlson and his sons have all received special training and certifications, and undergo regular continuing education. It also helps that his sons worked as roofers during their summers off from college.

"You cut a hole through people's roofs, you need to know what you are doing," he said.

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