Houses, Casas and Radon...Oh My

Hello,

Today finds me happily blogging away and eating red licorice that my father-in-law left behind after coming all the way from Olathe KS to do a home inspection on our new house. What an odd beginning...Let me back up a bit.

We have been harpooning for houses for around 6 months now. I took some time the other day and started to mark on a map of all the houses we have visited. It is still very incomplete (maybe 20-30%), but I will put it up anyway for those curious souls. Here it is. These are the houses that we physically went inside. If I count all the virtual tours, email alerts from multiple website, and the plethora of hours we spent talking about houses, driving by houses, and then talking about what we talked about...It is not a pretty picture. Multiply that number by a factor of 10 AT LEAST!! I think we put enough time in that it would count for another full time job.

Well, we finally found one that we are interested in. It is on the above map, but here it is again for those lazy souls. For those that missed the pictures of the house, here is a link (highlights) to more than you would care to throw a stick at (more photos).

To say we are excited about this house would be milquetoast. We are in LOOOVEEE with this house! I ran upstairs just a minute ago because I thought Jenny had fallen down. No...She was dancing about this house. The short...it is a nice big house with a 1/4 acre lot close to church, school, and all the day-to-day shopping you would need. Call me if you dare for the long version...

We saw this house a few days before the Rooster, Nurse, and 'lil Stinker came for a visit. We low-balled the sellers, and they countered with a still low bid. So we took it. Before R, N, & S (RNS) had a fighting chance, we drug them out to see it. I will post on their visit later. It was stinkin fun! I think that is what you get when you have a bunch of diaper-wearing toddlers running around. Lots of fun, and LOTS of diapers. K- I am going off on a tangent, back to the house.

After we were under contract, we called Jenny's dad to come out and do a home inspection. I had never heard of home inspectors before I married Jenny. For those prospective home buyers (even ones looking at brand new homes) I would recommend one (be sure and get one that is ASHI certified and has had 20+ years experience). Having a relative do an inspection gave us a great discount, and a full blown inspection. There were many items found, but the big ones that gave me pause were a wrongly installed pressure vacuum breaker -in current state allowed sprinkler water to get into potable system. Not good for those that spray chemicals on lawn, or have a pet- and poorly installed windows that allowed the window frames to start rotting. There were several other items that were found, but those were the biggies.

We also had our eyes open to the dangers of Radon. Now if you are like me, you know radon is bad, but that is about it. Radon is deadly. After smoking cigarettes, radon is the number two cause of lung cancer in the US. Those that have high levels of radon in their house are giving the occupants the equivalent of two packs of cigarettes a night when they go to sleep. That is how much lung damage it can cause. Here are a few links for the curious.

http://www.epa.gov/radon/index.html
General primer on Radon. I have a pdf I can mail you if interested.

http://www.epa.gov/radon/zonemap/utah.htm
This shows a map of Utah and the dangerous zones in the state.

http://www.epa.gov/radon/zonemap/colorado.htm
This is the same thing, but in ColoREDo.

http://www.epa.gov/radon/rnwater.html
Radon in drinking water.


K, for those of you still with me, radon had my attention. We had a person come out and perform a radon test in our basement. With our basement fan on, we averaged 2.2 (OK). without it on, we were around a 5. Now radon drops roughly in 1/2 every story up. So it would be around a 2.5 on the main living area, and 1.25 in the upstairs bedrooms. As we need to have our basement fan on at all times to keep the structural floor from molding in the basement, we will be fine.

Fun Fact--Did you know that if you live in pittsburg the average radon level is 12-13 pico-curies/liter? Just walking around breathing the air! That is on the equivalent of smoking a couple packs of cigs a day. I guess that is not to fun. Morbid Fact maybe?

So for those of you living in a red or orange zone, you should get your place checked. It varies from house to house on intensity. Jenny's sister, KC Nurse, just bought a ranch house, and has to deal with radon even though she doesn't have a basement.

-K- that is the end of my radon kick. The house is great. We are excited. Oh...I wanted to tell this tidbit. We took Madelyn down to register her at her new school. We found out that even though we live a mile from the school, they bus the kids. I guess since the route to get home crosses a busy intersection, they bus the kids. So she has a 10 min bus ride in the am, and pm. Jenny is relieved because she doesn't have to pack up the kids to take her back and forth every day. Year round school will be interesting. Well, I have to run. My 3-day weekend is at an end, and tomorrow I have to get back to work and projects.