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USE OF NATURAL VENTILATION TO CONTROL RADON IN SINGLE FAMILYDWELLINGS
Citation:
Cavallo, A., C. Berkner, AND K. Gadsby. USE OF NATURAL VENTILATION TO CONTROL RADON IN SINGLE FAMILYDWELLINGS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/D-90/095 (NTIS PB90262924), 1990.
Description:
The paper discusses an examination of a fundamental assumption inradon mitigation work, that natural ventilation is not veryeffective in lowering indoor radon levels in buildings. Themechanism by which ventilation acted to reduce radon levels wasconsidered to be simple dilution; thus a factor of lO increase inthe air exchange rate would be required to reduce radon levels bythis same factor.) he examination (in a natural ventilationexperiment in a research house) showed that this assumption isfundamentally incorrect. easuring the pressure field of abasement in conjunction with the building air exchange rate showsthat ventilation reduces radon levels two ways: 1) by dilution,and (2) by modification of the pressure field of the buildingshell. he experiment indicates that effect (2) is much moreimportant than (1)--dilution--and that natural ventilation cancause a much larger reduction in radon levels than was previouslybelieved possible.
