Radon Mitigation in Bridgwater

The Bridgwater communities in southwest Winnipeg are among the newest housing in the city, built from roughly 2008 onward. Everything is modern: engineered lots, current code, contemporary mechanical systems. Crawlspace calls here surprise homeowners, but new construction has its own failure modes, and in our climate they show up within a few years rather than a few decades.

The list is consistent across new builds: vapour barrier laid loose over the soil, unsealed at the seams and not carried up or fastened to the walls, so moisture and radon move around the edges; insulation installed in the floor joist cavity instead of against the perimeter wall, which leaves the crawlspace cold and its surfaces prone to condensation; rim joist air sealing left incomplete; sump discharge routed in a way that freezes in a cold snap; and dehumidifiers draining to a bucket rather than a permanent line.

The ground is still Red River clay, and it still heaves. Decks converted to sunrooms and additions built after the original construction sit on piers that often do not reach frost depth, and they move accordingly. Our scope in Bridgwater is usually corrective rather than reconstructive: complete and seal the envelope, correct the insulation plane, make drainage and discharge winter-safe, test radon because Manitoba readings are high, and document humidity performance so there is a baseline for the future.

Bridgwater calls are new-construction calls. The barrier was laid loose on the soil and never sealed to the wall, the insulation went into the floor joists, the rim joist was not air sealed, or the sump discharge froze in its first cold snap. Homeowners are often frustrated, because the house is only a few years old.

Our first recommendation is to finish the specification rather than replace anything: seal and fasten the barrier properly, correct the insulation plane, complete the rim joist air sealing, and make drainage and condensate routing winter-safe. Then test radon, because a membrane with unsealed edges offers little resistance to soil gas. The work is usually a matter of days rather than weeks.

Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas produced by the decay of uranium in soil and rock. It is colourless and odourless, it moves upward through soil, and it enters buildings through any opening in contact with the ground. Health Canada identifies it as the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking, and sets a guideline of 200 becquerels per cubic metre for indoor air, recommending remedial action above that level. Manitoba consistently records some of the highest residential readings in Canada, which makes this a local issue rather than an abstract one.

A crawlspace is the most efficient radon entry point a house can have. Where there is exposed soil, or a thin unsealed membrane, soil gas moves into the space essentially unimpeded — and from there into the living area, because the stack effect pulls air upward through a house continuously during the heating season. Our long heating season means that pressure difference operates for a large part of the year. A house with a sealed basement slab but an open crawlspace under an addition can still have substantially elevated levels.

Testing has to come before mitigation, and it has to be done correctly. A long-term test of at least three months, ideally during the heating season when windows are closed and the stack effect is strongest, gives a representative result. Short-term tests are useful as a screening indicator but fluctuate too much to base a decision on. We will arrange or guide testing, and we would rather you test first than buy a mitigation system you may not need — though in a crawlspace with exposed soil, sealing the floor is worthwhile on moisture grounds regardless of the radon number.

Where mitigation is needed, the standard approach in a crawlspace is active sub-membrane depressurization. A sealed membrane is installed across the floor and up the walls — the same membrane used for encapsulation, which is why these two projects belong together — and a dedicated fan draws continuously from beneath it through a perforated collection pipe, venting above the roofline. That negative pressure under the membrane captures soil gas before it can enter the space. The system is simple and highly effective, but it depends entirely on how well the membrane is sealed, which is why installation quality matters more than equipment selection.

Post-mitigation verification is not optional in our view. After the system is running and the building has returned to normal operating conditions, the space and the living area should be retested to confirm the reduction. We also label the system, explain what the manometer reading means, and tell you what to check — because a mitigation fan is a mechanical device that will eventually fail, usually silently. A system nobody monitors is a system that may have stopped protecting you years ago.

Pressure and building dynamics explain why two apparently identical houses can test very differently, and why your neighbour's result tells you nothing about yours. Radon entry depends on the pressure difference between the soil and the building interior, and that depends on stack effect strength, exhaust appliances, mechanical ventilation balance, wind, and how tight the building is. A house with powerful kitchen and bathroom exhaust and no make-up air runs at a greater negative pressure, and draws correspondingly more soil gas. This is also why sealing work and mechanical changes can shift a reading in either direction, and why testing after any significant envelope work is sensible.

System design details separate a mitigation that works from one that merely hums. The collection point beneath the membrane needs a permeable layer — clean gravel or a drainage mat — so the fan can draw from the whole footprint rather than a single spot. The fan has to be sized to the soil's permeability and the area served: too little suction leaves parts of the footprint uncaptured, too much wastes energy and can pull conditioned air if the membrane has gaps. The exhaust must terminate above the roofline and away from windows and air intakes. And the pipe needs a manometer, so the system reports its own status.

Timing relative to encapsulation is the practical advice we give most often. If you are sealing a crawlspace for moisture reasons and you have not tested for radon, test first. The collection pipe and gravel layer belong under the membrane, installed before it goes down; retrofitting them means cutting open a barrier you just paid for and compromising its continuity. A long-term test takes three months, which is usually compatible with planning a project anyway. If the number comes back low, you have lost nothing but gained a documented baseline. If it comes back high, you have saved yourself from doing the job twice.