Radon Mitigation in Lowell, MA

A radon mitigation system gives the gas a way out of your house that is not through your living space. Pipe, fan, sealed entry points, and a way to confirm it is working. If you have a test result in hand and you are in Lowell, we can look at it.

What radon actually is, without the scare

Radon is a gas that comes up out of the ground and gets into houses through the lowest level. You cannot smell it or see it. At high enough levels over long enough it is genuinely bad for you, which is why testing exists.

The reason we lead with testing rather than selling: your neighbour’s number is not your number. Houses fifty feet apart test differently. Get your own.

How the system works

The common approach is sub-slab depressurization. We core the slab, put a pipe into the material under it, run that pipe out and up, and put a fan on it. The fan pulls a slight vacuum under the slab so the gas goes up the pipe instead of into the basement. Then we seal the obvious entry points, the floor wall joint and any open sump, so the system is pulling from under the slab and not from your basement air.

Crawl spaces work a bit differently. The membrane becomes part of the system and we draw from underneath it.

Testing before and after

We test, we install, we test again. That second test is the whole point, and you should insist on it from anyone you hire.

603 holds a state radon measurement certification, RMS-113966.

What we will not promise you

We will not guarantee a specific radon number unless we put that number in writing for your house.

Plenty of outfits will promise you a level over the phone. We would rather test your house, install the system, test again, and show you where it actually landed. If a specific result matters to you, and for a real estate closing it usually does, get it in writing before the work starts. From us or from anybody else.

The warranty

Radon mitigation carries a 10 year warranty on system integrity and components. That covers the system. It is not a guarantee of a radon level, for the reason above.

Questions we get

My house is new. Do I still need to test?
Yes. Construction age does not tell you what is under the slab.

Is the fan loud?
You should hear a low hum at most. If a system is noisy or rattling, something is wrong with it and it is worth a call.

Does it run all the time?
Yes, continuously. Turning it off means it is not doing anything.

What about radon in water?
That is a separate test and a separate system from the air side. If you are on a private well it is worth asking about.

I am selling. How fast can this happen?
Tell us the closing date when you call. Most installs are a day.

Reading your test result

Situation	What it means	What happens next
Short-term test came back high	A snapshot, and worth acting on	Confirm, then look at the house for a system layout
Two tests disagree	Normal. Radon moves with weather and season	Longer test, or treat the higher reading as the planning number
Buyer or seller needs a number	There is a deadline attached	Tell us the closing date when you call
Finished basement, no test yet	People spend hours in that room	Test before you spend anything else on the space
Crawl space rather than a slab	Different system design	The membrane becomes part of the system
On a private well	Water is a separate pathway from air	Separate test, separate system if needed

How the job runs

It starts with a number. If you already have a test result, bring it. If you do not, that is where we begin, because there is no sense designing a system for a house nobody has measured.

Then somebody looks at the house. Where the slab is, where the pipe can run, where the fan can sit so you are not listening to it in the room above. That layout is most of the job and it is why we do not quote it over the phone.

On install day the slab gets cored, the pipe goes in and runs out and up, the fan goes on it, and the obvious entry points get sealed so the system is pulling from under the slab rather than out of your basement.

Then we test again. That second test is the point of the whole exercise, and you should insist on it from anybody you hire, us included.

Lowell has been managing water since 1941

Lowell sits where the Concord River meets the Merrimack, and the city has spent most of a century dealing with what that means.

The Flood Damage Reduction system was originally constructed in 1941 by the Army Corps of Engineers, built in response to the devastating floods of 1936 and 1938 (City of Lowell). The Merrimack’s flood stage at Lowell is 52 feet, with action at 50, moderate at 54 and major at 58.

The city currently has 9 combined sewer overflow outfalls contributing 330 million gallons of combined sewer to the Merrimack, the Concord and Beaver Brook (Lowell Regional Wastewater Utility).

Where Lowell floods, by the city’s own record

Lowell’s Hazard Mitigation Plan names the places. The Beaver Brook dam area is recorded as “the most common area of flooding.” Townsend Avenue near Pawtucketville, next to Clay Pit Brook, is another. Beaver Brook, Black Brook, Clay Pit Brook and Scarlet Brook are all named perennial streams in the city.

The repetitive-loss figures are the ones worth sitting with: 25 repetitive-loss buildings, 55 losses, $584,907 in repetitive-loss payments, and 245 closed paid claims totalling $4,942,173. Those are properties that have flooded more than once and been paid out more than once.

The layer under your slab

Here is the part that actually explains a lot of wet Lowell basements. The major soil components mapped across the city carry a densic restrictive layer, and the depths are recorded: Paxton at 66 to 71 centimetres, Woodbridge at 76 to 81, Montauk at 87 to 92 (USDA NRCS Soil Data Access, clipped to the Lowell city polygon).

A densic layer is compacted glacial till that water does not readily pass through. Water moving down through the soil reaches it and has to go sideways instead. Where a foundation is in the way of sideways, you get a wet basement, and no amount of sealing the inside of the wall changes where the water is going.

The city’s elevation runs from about 39.5 feet to 313.6 feet, so how that plays out varies a great deal across town.

That is the mapped picture for Lowell as a whole. What is under your house on your street is established by looking, and the look is free.

The rivers, and the gauges that watch them

The Concord River gauge at Lowell sets action stage at 7.5 feet, minor at 8, moderate at 10 and major at 12, with a record crest of 9.74 feet and 5,840 cubic feet per second on 17 March 2010. That March 2010 event appears in the city’s own storm-event record.

Lowell has also put money behind one of its problem watersheds: a $138,000 state Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant in FY21 for the Claypit Brook watershed on the northwestern side of the city.

On geological hazards the city is direct. Its plan states that officials “did not identify any local areas that were previously recorded as being vulnerable to geologic hazards,” and classifies all of Lowell the same way for that risk. So the water story here is a surface-water and soil story, not a bedrock-instability one.

What our customers say

I called 603 Basement Solutions to repair my radon mitigation system. The response was quick and Justin was able to quickly repair my existing system. I had a great experience with the company and would highly recommend.

Adam Smith, Google review, 5 stars

That is one of more than 240 Google reviews. We would rather you read them than take our word for anything on this page.

Related pages for Lowell

Book a free inspection in Lowell

Somebody comes out, looks at the actual space, and tells you straight what it needs and what it does not. You get a written number for a defined scope. No two hour pitch, because we would rather be at the next house.

If you are looking for a team that isn’t going to treat you like another number, we would be happy to give you an estimate free of charge. We don’t cut corners. We stand behind our work. We care.

Call 603-610-1770 or book your free inspection. We cover Lowell and the surrounding towns from our shop in East Kingston, New Hampshire.

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