Radon for Calgary realtors

What does Health Canada tell realtors about radon and a sale?

It tells them to keep the measurement out of the transaction. The brochure Radon in real estate, which is addressed to realtors, says that a three-month test is the only way to accurately find out what the radon level is in a home, and that Health Canada doesn't recommend conducting a radon test during a real estate transactionsource. Everything else in its advice follows from that. The seller, who has time, measures before the sale. The buyer, who has none during the deal, measures after moving in.

For an agent, that order has one practical merit: it is easy to repeat accurately. It asks nobody to hurry, and it keeps a deal from turning on a number that was never meant to carry one. The table follows a sale from the first meeting to the weeks after possession.

Clients who want the same position written for them can be sent to our page on radon testing around a home purchase or sale in Calgary.

How should you raise radon with a client?

Early, plainly and without alarm. Three points carry most first conversations: the gas is common in this region, nobody can notice it without a test, and a high level has a well-understood repair.

Radon is a radioactive gas produced by the natural breakdown of uranium in soil and rock, and it has no colour, odour or tastesource. That is the whole reason a walk-through tells a buyer nothing about it. The local figures give the conversation its scale. The Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Exposure reports that about 1 in 6 houses in the Calgary area (15.5%) were at or above 200 Bq/m³source. An earlier study led by the University of Calgary, published in 2017, found about 1 in 8 homes tested in Calgary and area at or above Health Canada's guidelinesource. Quote the newer survey first and treat the older one as background.

On health, stay inside what the federal source says and go no further. Health Canada lists an increased risk of lung cancer as the only known health effect of radon, and describes that risk as long-term and not immediate, depending on the level, the length of exposure and smokingsource. An agent does not need to be a health adviser. Pointing a client to our plain-language guide to radon and health is enough.

Two shortcuts are worth avoiding. The first is reassurance by neighbourhood, builder or year of construction. The second is a figure borrowed from the house next door. Levels differ from one house to another, even between similar houses side by side, and a test is the only way to be sure of a particular home's levelsource. Health Canada's recommendation is that every home be tested, wherever it is and whatever kind of building it issource.

What should a seller client do before the listing goes live?

Start a long-term test as soon as selling is on the horizon, and fix a high result while no closing date is pressing. Sellers are advised by Health Canada to test, and to mitigate if necessary, before they sell, so that a low radon level can be presented as a feature of the homesource.

The calendar is the part clients underestimate. Health Canada recommends a measurement of 3 to 12 months, and sets the minimum at 91 dayssource. It also wants at least 91 days of the test to fall in the heating season, when windows are closed and indoor radon tends to be highestsource. A seller who mentions a move at the first meeting may still have time for that. One who calls the week before the photographs cannot, and it helps to say so kindly and directly.

A listing appointment is therefore a good moment to ask a single question: has this home ever had a long-term radon test, and is the report on hand? If the answer is yes, the report goes into the listing file. If it is no and there is still a cold season ahead, a detector can go out now. The steps are described under long-term radon testing for Calgary houses.

What should a buyer client plan for?

A long-term test after possession, run through the heating season, with the purchase period used to collect whatever is already on record. For buyers, Health Canada's advice is to conduct a long-term radon test once they have moved into their new homesource.

Buyers sometimes hear that as being asked to buy blind. It helps to explain why the later test is the better one. It is taken in the rooms the new household really uses. Health Canada places the detector in a regularly occupied room on the lowest lived-in level of the homesource. A family that turns a storage basement into bedrooms changes which room that is. A measurement made under the previous owners describes how they lived, and the new one describes how your client lives.

In the meantime, a buyer's agent can ask for three things: any long-term report, with its dates and the room tested; the records of any mitigation system; and, in a newer house, whether a capped rough-in pipe is present. None of that needs a monitor, and none of it delays an offer.

Does a radon test belong in the condition period?

Not as the measurement that settles anything. Health Canada does not recommend a radon test while the transaction is in progresssource, and we do not describe any radon reading as something that fits a condition period.

A client may still ask for a short reading with an electronic radon monitor. That request is theirs to make, and the result is optional screening only. Your job at that point is to keep the label on it: a screening figure goes into the file as a screening figure, with its dates, and never as the home's radon level. What such a reading can and cannot tell a buyer is set out, point by point, on the buyer and seller page on radon around a Calgary sale, which is the one to forward.

The wording you use matters here. A screening result is not a pass, and a low one is not a reason to skip the long-term test after possession. If a client wants a condition tied to radon, how it is written is a matter for the client and their lawyer. Our part stops at the measurement; ask us how the report states its limits.

What is a hold back, and what can you say about it?

It is an arrangement that lets the test happen after the sale has closed, and you can describe it as something Health Canada mentions, not as something it prescribes. Health Canada notes that, in some cases, real estate professionals use a hold back so that radon testing can take place after a transaction is complete, and that mitigation is then paid from the held-back funds if a high level is foundsource.

The phrase to keep is "in some cases". The brochure reports a practice; it does not recommend one for every sale. When a client asks whether to use one, the accurate reply has three parts: the arrangement exists, Health Canada mentions it, and the drafting belongs with the lawyer. We write no clauses and suggest no figures. If the parties agree on one, what we can supply afterwards is technical: a long-term test after possession, a laboratory report and, where the average is high, a written mitigation quote.

What can a listing say about an existing system or a rough-in?

Only what the equipment and the paperwork support. A listing that names a mitigation system is strongest when four documents sit behind it:

• The long-term test report from before the installation, with dates and the room tested.
• The installer's name and certification number, and the date the system was put in.
• The long-term result measured after the installation.
• Any later retest, and a note of fan or gauge work done since.

Without those, describe what is physically there and stop. The gauge on the pipe is the item buyers ask about. A U-tube manometer on the pipe indicates that the system is working, because a higher liquid level on one side shows the pressure difference created by the fansource. It shows suction and not a radon level, so it supports the words "system operating" and nothing about the air in the house. Health Canada recommends retesting a home with an active mitigation system every 5 years, and again after any renovation that affects the structure or the ventilationsource. An old result on a system nobody has checked since is worth flagging to the seller before a buyer flags it.

Rough-ins need the most care, because the wording drifts. The Canadian standard for new buildings states that a rough-in is not a complete radon control system, though it allows easier conversion to one later should that become necessarysource. "Radon rough-in present" is accurate. Calling the same pipe a mitigation system, or radon protection, is not. Homes whose building permits were applied for before November 1, 2015 generally were not required to have a radon rough-insource, so on an older resale there may be no pipe to mention. What the capped stub looks like is described for inspectors on our page on radon equipment in a home inspection, and activating a builder's radon rough-in shows what the conversion involves.

What has Alberta's real estate regulator said about radon?

It has addressed the subject directly with the people it regulates. Radon guidance for licensees has been issued by the Real Estate Council of Alberta, which also added radon to its 2019 re-licensing educationsource.

We repeat that fact and add nothing to it. What the guidance asks of you in a particular sale, and what a seller must disclose, are questions for your broker, the regulator or a lawyer. Our trade is the detector and the pipe, and we do not interpret real estate rules. If the regulator's text and anything on this page ever seem to differ, follow the regulator.

What happens when a client's long-term result is above the guideline?

The owner plans a repair, on a timeline that Health Canada sets by how high the average is. The guideline that applies is 200 Bq/m³ of indoor air, and Health Canada recommends corrective action where a home's annual average is highersource. Above that figure it recommends mitigating within one year, sooner the higher the level, and reducing levels as low as reasonably achievablesource. It adds that a reduction system can usually be installed in less than a day and, in most homes, reduces radon by more than 80%, at a cost comparable to other common home repairssource.

That recommendation is for results above the guideline. Under it, the choice belongs to the owner, and it is fair to add that no level is considered risk-free and that lower is better. A client who wants to see where a number falls can use the radon result checker or read how Canada's radon guideline divides results into ranges.

Clients often ask what the work looks like. In the standard layout the fan sits on the pipe inside the basement and the exhaust leaves through the rim joist at the side wall. In some houses the pipe instead follows an interior route to a point above the roof. After an installation, the installer takes a short verification reading. The long-term confirmation comes from an independent laboratory kit that the owner sets out and mails. The method is explained on the Calgary radon mitigation page.

How can a client check who did the test or the work?

By looking the person up, which takes a certification number and a public website. Health Canada's recommendation is to hire a professional who holds certification from the Canadian National Radon Proficiency Programsource. C-NRPP offers a public search tool for finding certified professionals, and a certification check that confirms an individual's certification from the numbersource.

Here, measurement and mitigation are both done by Plinio Neto, who holds in his own name the C-NRPP Radon Measurement Professional certification (CRT-202965) and the C-NRPP Radon Mitigation Professional certification (CRMT-202966). Either side of a sale can confirm those numbers in the C-NRPP list of certified individuals before relying on a report. The same check works for any name that appears on a seller's old paperwork, and the guide to choosing a radon contractor lists the other questions worth asking.

If you have a question about a specific property, send it through the form on this page or the contact page. Tell us whether your client is selling or buying and what documents exist, and we will say plainly what we can do and what we cannot. More about who we are is on the page about this company.