Radon Mitigation Systems in Colorado Springs

The trigger is a measurement. The EPA recommends fixing a home at 4.0 pCi/L or higher and considering action between 2 and 4 pCi/L — if you already have a result, check what your reading means. Without a number there is no way to design a system sensibly, so the first step is a professional radon test rather than an install.

Worth stating plainly: no level of radon is proven safe. 4.0 is the point at which the EPA says act, not a line above which radon is harmful and below which it isn't. Given that El Paso County is Zone 1 and county public health found elevated radon in over 40% of homes tested between 2005 and 2023, an elevated result here is common rather than unusual — and it is a solvable building problem.

Radon enters because a building sits at slightly lower pressure than the ground beneath it: warm air rises and escapes, and replacement air is drawn in through every crack and penetration in the lowest level. Mitigation reverses that. A suction point is cut through the slab and a sealed pipe connects it to a fan that runs continuously, venting above the roofline. The space under the slab is now the lower-pressure side, so soil gas leaves through the pipe instead of through your floor.

The system intercepts radon before it becomes indoor air — it is not filtering the air you are breathing. Every install carries a manometer so the pressure difference is visible at a glance. The installation photographs show how pipe runs, fan placement and vent terminations look on finished houses.

Foundation type drives everything, which is why a fixed price from someone who has not seen the building deserves caution. A full basement often needs a single suction point. Slab-on-grade works the same way — a slab is not a radon barrier, since control joints, plumbing penetrations and the perimeter gap all pass soil gas. Walkout and garden-level basements, common through Monument and Falcon, have walls above grade that change both the pressure field and the routing.

Crawl spaces need sub-membrane depressurization instead: a sealed vapour barrier over the soil, with the system drawing from beneath it — the same work as our crawl space sealing and insulation. An open sump pit is a hole straight into the sub-slab and is sealed with a gasketed lid as part of the job; where water is already a problem, combining radon work with sump pump installation and drainage is far cheaper than opening the floor twice.

CDPHE puts a typical residential mitigation system in Colorado at $1,000 to $2,000 — the state health department's published range, not our price list. What moves a job inside it: how many suction points the slab needs, the distance to a code-compliant vent termination, whether the pipe runs inside or up an exterior wall, whether a crawl space needs a barrier first, and how much finished space has to be worked around.

The cheapest case by a wide margin is a house built with a passive rough-in — a capped pipe already running sub-slab to roof. Activating it means adding a correctly sized fan, because the expensive part is already in the walls. Newer construction around Falcon and Monument often has one; if you see a capped white pipe in your mechanical room, mention it when you call.

Every job finishes with a post-mitigation verification test — the only evidence the system does what it was installed to do, and a written number you keep. The EPA states that radon reduction systems can lower levels by up to 99%, and that is the realistic upper end of what this method achieves.

What we will not do is name the figure your house will land on beforehand, and you should be sceptical of anyone who does. Actual reduction depends on your foundation, your soil, your starting concentration and how the building moves air. If verification comes back higher than the design intended, that is a conversation about additional suction points or fan sizing, not something quietly filed. The follow-up uses the same protocol as an initial radon test.

The fan runs continuously by design. Switch it off, even seasonally, and the sub-slab pressure field collapses within hours. Maintenance is light: if the manometer fluid sits uneven the system is drawing, which is what you want; if the columns are level, the fan has stopped. Retest every couple of years and after anything that changes the foundation or building envelope.

Radon reduction is one part of a healthier building — our indoor air quality page covers where it sits alongside moisture and ventilation. Colorado has required radon professionals to be licensed since 1 July 2022, so ask any contractor for their licence number and NRPP certification, what the vent termination plan is, and whether the verification test is included in writing. We work across Colorado Springs and El Paso County; the certified technician doing the installs is named on this site.