Reentry of Radon from mitigation system outlets

Some radon mitigation systems draw air with a high radon concentration from under the basement floors of houses and exhaust it outdoors. The objective of this project was to measure the reentry rates of radon released at roof level and at ground level near a house to determine whether exhaust above the roof is necessary. This was done by using a portable mockup of a radon mitigation system exhaust, with sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) as a tracer gas. The roof-level exhaust produced maximum indoor sulfur hexafluoride concentrations that were significantly lower than those from the ground-level exhaust. This suggests that the better radon discharge location is on the roof of a house.