Eh, we are getting pad and carpet installed over a bare concrete floor. It has some cracks in it. They are not getting bigger. The installation is in three days.
I’m not worried about the cracks per-se, but the radon gas that could leak through them (we have not had a radon test)
As a “Well it can’t hurt ‘fix’ (I use fix loosely)” I thought I would fill the cracks with caulk. Probably doesn’t matter, but what do you folks think, silicone or latex? I don’t really see a benefit either way.
I’m in NO way thinking that this will keep the cracks from spreading.
Crack filler isn’t necessarily permanent. When I’ve used it on driveways and patios, it eventually shrinks and separates from the sides of the cracks. That’s not such a big deal on a driveway, but it may matter if you’re trying to block gases from rising up.
this is true, but in a temperature controlled basement, you don’t have to worry about freeze and thaw cycles, and thus, while not technically “permanent”, you should not have these types of issues in this application.
Yes, I understand. If we have to pull up the carpet, so be it (It’s one room).
The carpet is coming Monday. So no time for a test at this point. Should have thought of it sooner. My Wife just brought it up this morning. She’s an appraiser, so she deals with this stuff. That’s not my field at all.
Not from anyone I know. But maps say it is a problem in Colorado. We don’t have a basement, this is a slab on grade. I suspect that that might mitigate it some. If there is even a problem.
He’s in Colorado, where – broadly – half of all homes have high levels of radon.
Instead of a test, or an active radon mitigation system, when you buy a home in Colorado, you get a brochure about radon – a document that few living human beings have ever read or will ever read.
At scale, requiring every new home to have an active mitigation system would cost very little. Lung cancer, on the other hand, is both costly and shitty.
I think the whole thing is just a wee bit insane, but … that’s just me.
Yup, my bad. They would. Never got around to it. Honestly, it may also be a situation where, I don’t really want to know. 32 years in this house with no ill effects.
I hear you–out of sight out of mind is a truism for a reason. Plus it’s not super easy to mitigate radon in existing construction that doesn’t have a crawl space. But it might become an issue when you sell as you are aware.
Yeah, we are going to sell, one way or another. Cross that bridge when we get there. I’ll just go with ignorance, since, I. Don’t. Know. The concrete filler is sort of a ‘Might as well’ as long as it’s exposed.
We should have done one years ago, life got in the way.
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