Radon in Well Water- Safe Drinking Water – RI Living

Radon in Well Water- Safe Drinking Water – RI Living

In fact, in one of my recent Charlestown RI home sales, I talked about the potability of water and the hubbub it caused for my buyers.  And that was due to the lender.  Well the lender wanted a radon water test for the well to meet acceptable EPA guidelines.

My recommendation to buyers when buying any home with well water is to test it for radon anyway.

As RI living here is pretty carefree but we want to drink clean and safe water but we do not seem to want to put standards to that effect.  So we turn to the neighboring states for their acceptable limits when testing radon in the well water, as follows

Massachusetts – 10,000 pCi/L

Connecticut-         5,000 pCi/L
Maine-                     4,000 pCi/L

Vermont-               5,000 pCi/L

New Hampshire & Rhode Island just do not have well water radon standards.

Truthfully, in the most current home buying situation, the level of well water radon was above 10,000 pCi/L so we could make a case for the seller paying for it.

 

Considering there are two kinds of well water radon mitigation systems to use:  Aeration and GAC, it was recommended by the home inspector and testing company to go with the Aeration treatment system that runs $3400+ (the more costly and supposedly the better of the two systems).

 

That is what the lender accepted as well as the buyers.

But what if the radon in the well water had come in around 4000 pCi/L?  With no RI standards is it then the responsibility of the buyers to install a system of their choice?  It does seem to be what is happening when I talk to fellow agents.  I am curious what other agents or inspectors have experienced and how they have dealt with past home buying situations.    Please share with me!

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