I built new and first used drylok on the walls, both outside and inside. Totally sealed and the white paint looked nice on the brick walls for moving into. Yes, the outside was treated with standard tar afterwards as well. After moving in the Radon test was at 4.6. I then used Radon-Seal on the floors which dropped it down to a 1.4 when I tested it 3 weeks later. Two coats went down. Lastly I applied an epoxy finish on the floor to give it some type of texture unil I finish off the basement. That did not reduce the Radon any further. Then only drawback I saw with the Radon-seal was that if I spilled water on the floor, like from the dehumidifier, and did not wipe it up right away it seeped through the epoxy but not through the Radon-seal. Which then caused the epoxy to bubble and seperate from the floor. So obviously its a great water sealent. To reduce the radon any more I'm considering sealing and venting the sump crock to the outside and if need be use the SANITRED around the perimeter where the walls meet the floor. They sell a compound that is thicker that can be poured in the crevice like a latext caulk. If I had to do it over again I would use the Radon-seal on the walls. Drylok was cheaper, but Radon-seal was much easier to apply using a garden sprayer then trying to get a heavy duty paint sprayer to pump that thick drylok paint. The actual radon levels are probably a lot lower in the basement anyway since we rarely keep it air tight for long periods. I have my workout equipment down there and always crack open the patio door (exposed basement in the back) when down there every day for 1 hour. I also turned a friend onto Radon-seal. His was over 7. He did 1/2 the basement and dropped it to a 4. Then he had to rip up the carpet and do the other half. Highest readings were near the sump, so he sealed and put in a power vent. Now he's under a 2. Where he lives the area is known for high radon levels and he was unaware of the issue until I told him of all the stuff I was doing for my place since being new it was all open and the time to do it.

- 100 ppm (kills fecal coliform) to 200 ppm (kills iron and sulphur reducing bacteria) chlorine will not damage water softener resin. In fact, the instructions included with my PETWA softener give details on how to shock the softener itself, so no worries there. -you want chlorinated water at a concentration per the step by step instructions given above to touch every line and fixture in the house. Start by turning off your hot water tank and running the hot side of your bathtub fixture until you get an obvious smell of chlorine. Repeat for every hot side in the house. This will ensure that your hot water tank is treated as well. Repeat with every cold side including outside hydrants. The chlorinated water should sit in your well and plumbing for a minium of 8 hrs. You should avoid flushing toilets if on septic but if it's unavoidable, a few (FEW) flushes will not hurt anything. -Draining the chlorinated water is time consuming and involved. Start by attaching a garden hose to the drain on the hot water tank (making sure that gas/electric has been SHUT OFF) and leading that hose to your sump or ditch outside. Crack the drain valve wide open and let it run. If you have a laundry tub with a threaded end on the spout fixture, then attach a garden house leading to the great outdoors and open the hot water tap all the way. This will flush your hot water tank, softener and pressure tank and well. Run the water until there is no apparent smell of chlorine, you'll want to use test strips or a pool test kit to verify that the chlorine is gone, your nose will "die" pretty quick sniffing heavily chlorinated water. Once the hot water side of your system has no chlorine coming from the laundry tub tap, drain the cold water side using the same laundry tub tap. Once no chlorine registers on the cold water side, run all the main taps in the house, hot then cold until no chlorine is present. The small amount of water that you are dealing with that is left in your plumbing will not harm the septic tank. It is imperative that you follow the first steps to drain the lions share of the chlorinated water out of your plumbing system and to clear your well. You can do cold side first, while draining the well, it's up to you. Be patient, getting the chlorine out is an all day task. -Regarding your RO, remove the membrane, filters and discard, make sure that chlorinated water gets into the housing and tap. We recently did this to kill off sulphur reducing bacteria (harmless to us, but boy did they ever add a rotten egg smell to the water). It was easy, but time consuming

How does your aerator work? What kind of equipment is it? Please desribe your equipment, size, pump type, injector?, retention size, equipment sequence...etc. It is not clear by what you say: "The results showed that I likely do not need a water softner." How was that concluded? I was wondering how much flux would it take to prevent water from entering the aerator? Sounds a little strange to me. Maybe it prevented air from entering the water. If your aerator is creating ferric, or precipitated iron, then a softener after it will have no (or little) positive effect. In fact, it will probably damage the resins and perhaps the valve over time. The iron will come through and cause staining and other problems. You need an efficient backwashing (mulitmedia) filter. Andy

So I have two radon sources: my crawlspace dirt and my water cistern off-gassing radon (confirmed to be 20,000 pCi/L by water labs). I am suspicious about that high of a reading, sounds like an error. If it is true you are on top of a uranium mine and your radiation exposure is similar to living at Chernobyl.... If these levels are real your area would need to be condemned. What are your air levels reading? You would be better off spray foaming your floor joists, installing heat tape on your plumbing so it doesn't freeze (not touching the foam or anything else), and ventilating the crawlspace with outdoor air. You want to make your house tight so radon doesn't get in, not make openings to try to blow conditioned air out (which is very inefficient also). You should also not have ductwork running through this crawlspace. You will be better off using a granular activated charcoal system for capturing the radon in the water, and the filter material may need to be registered as radioactive waste. I guess doing the external cistern could work. It would have to be very large and would have to sit long enough to off-gas which is not practical for most homeowners but if you have the space to do it (and it sounds like you do) then it should work.