Radon Testing in Colorado Springs

The EPA places Colorado, El Paso County included, in Radon Zone 1 — the highest of its three tiers. El Paso County Public Health reports that over 40% of county homes tested between 2005 and 2023 came back with elevated radon, and CDPHE puts the statewide figure at roughly 1 in 2 homes. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States.

None of that tells you about your building. A zone is a prediction across a county; a test is a measurement of your house. If you want the geology behind those figures first, our explainer on what radon is and where it comes from in Colorado covers it.

Radon swings hour to hour with weather and how a building is used, so a valid short-term test runs for a minimum of 48 hours under closed-house conditions — windows and exterior doors shut except for normal entry and exit, beginning 12 hours before the detector goes down. We place a calibrated detector in the lowest level that is lived in or could be finished as living space, because that is where radon concentrates.

You get a written result, normally within about 48 hours of collection, for a flat $150 covering placement, the measurement period and the report. On timing — after a renovation, before finishing a basement, at a particular time of year — see our guide on when you should test your home.

The EPA recommends acting at 4.0 pCi/L or higher and recommends considering action between 2 and 4 pCi/L. One point gets blurred in this industry and shouldn't be: no level of radon is proven safe. 4.0 is an action level, not a safety line, and a lower reading means lower exposure rather than none. Anyone describing a result as “safe” is saying something the EPA does not.

Not sure where your own number falls? Our radon levels chart explains what any pCi/L reading means, with a Bq/m³ converter. At or above the action level, the next step is a mitigation system designed around your foundation, and the photographs of completed installations show what that looks like finished.

Testing is flat — $150 regardless of property size or age. Mitigation is where the variables are: CDPHE puts a typical residential system in Colorado at $1,000 to $2,000, which is the state health department's published range rather than a quote from us. Foundation type, the number of suction points and vent routing all move a specific building within it.

Two things genuinely reduce cost. A house with an existing passive rough-in — a capped pipe from beneath the slab to the roof with no fan — has the expensive part done already. And combining work you were doing anyway, such as sealing and insulating a crawl space or installing a sump pump and drainage, avoids opening the same floor twice.

Senate Bill 23-206, effective 7 August 2023, requires sellers and landlords to provide a radon warning statement, disclose any test results and mitigation records they know of, and supply the CDPHE brochure. Colorado has also required radon professionals to be licensed since 1 July 2022 — ask for the number, including from us.

The 48-hour minimum cannot be compressed, so under contract a test needs scheduling early in the inspection period rather than at the end. We handle transaction testing for homes, rentals and commercial property across Colorado Springs and the surrounding communities.

Ask for the Colorado licence number and NRPP certification. Ask how long the detector stays down and what closed-house conditions you must maintain — a measurement under 48 hours, or without those conditions, is not something to make a spending decision on. Ask whether the report gives an actual pCi/L figure rather than a pass or fail, and who performs the post-mitigation verification test if mitigation follows.

Then ask to see real work, and ask who is doing it. Ours is documented in photographs of actual jobs, and the technician behind them is named on this site.