Radon in Atlantic Canada: Why 1-in-4 NB Homes Fails the Safety Standard — and What Contractors Must Know

0:00This episode is brought to you by our presenting sponsor Pizzant Building Products. Pizzant Building Products has been providing contractors and builders with the supplies necessary to complete their jobs since 1964. They have built a reputation of honest, helpful, and quality service, serving the HRM for the last 58 years. Now with seven locations in Nova Scotia and one in New Brunswick, our team at the Atlantic Construction Podcast is extremely excited to announce our new co-branded partner, Procore. Procore is the global leader in construction management software. We'll be conducting

0:29several podcast episodes with Procore users and construction companies across the country in 2023, among many other things. Stay tuned — we're excited. Okay, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. We have a guest today from New Brunswick; he's here in the studio with us. It's Jeff LeBlanc, owner of Radon Repair. Jeff, good to have you with us today. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me here — first podcast, so I'm excited to break that brick seal. Absolutely, man, we're happy to have you here first, and you're

1:07in the city this week for a few different things, a few meetings, but you're at an event locally — is that right? Yes, most definitely. Yeah, so I'm entrepreneurial, I have a few different businesses, and yeah, I was in town for the Atlantic Building Supplies Dealer Association meetings and expo. And they held that — was that at the Nova Centre, or — yes, the new — yeah, exactly. Yeah, we were staying at the Sutton Place Hotel. Beautiful, beautiful spot.

1:36Great spot. I think there was — last night for dinner there was 750 people. Wow! Yeah, it's a big event. Yeah, what was on the menu? It was a good steak, I bet. It was a good steak, yeah. Awesome, yeah. There's a bar open too. Oh, that's great, man. Yeah, I know we were chatting before we went on air here and you've got some different business interests. Today we're going to talk about radon and your

2:04company based in New Brunswick. You're working in the residential and commercial, you're helping people out in PEI and Nova Scotia with this issue of radon that I think is becoming more evident, but not necessarily on everyone's radar yet. Yeah, for sure. That's the exciting thing — radon, you know, I'm able to educate and teach people about at the same time, so it's fun. Six years ago I didn't know anything about radon, so I've

2:28I've gone through that learning curve already, and now I'm able to share some of that information with the public. So yeah, good for you. We like to kind of start with giving a little bit of context — maybe explain for our listeners, like, what was it six years ago, or prior to that, that kind of made you pivot into this? Was there a certain experience? Was it just an opportunity that came about? You mentioned you're entrepreneurial — that's obvious. But kind of what made

2:54you want to tackle this specific service? Yeah, great question. It was interesting — like I said, I didn't know anything about it six or seven years ago. I guess it was seven years ago. And I had a home inspection business, so I was a home inspector, and happened to be down in the States at a conference for home inspections. I'm walking around the booths, and every second booth had something to do with radon, and I have a science degree

3:21right, so I know what radon is, I know it's number 86, and I know where it is. What's your degree from? UNB? Okay, so you're a UNB grad? Yeah, engineering science. Okay, science with a major in math? Okay, I'm a math geek. Wow, yeah. And a minor in French Linguistics — I'm a little bit different. Yeah, you've got both sides of the brain covered there. Yeah, the language and the math. Yeah, the only one to graduate from UNB in '97 with a bachelor in

3:47science with a major in math. Wow, yeah. And so are you bilingual then? Yeah, 100%. Okay, so that doesn't hurt for sales. No, it's very good, especially in New Brunswick — lots of French. I'm a LeBlanc, so yeah, there you go, I had to learn it. My parents can't speak French, and I'm an Arsenault, but unfortunately I didn't go to French immersion and I wish I was bilingual. Yeah, yeah. So I'm at the conference and I'm walking around the booths and everyone's talking about radon,

4:15every second booth — like, why are you talking about radon? And they explained to me, in short form, what radon was and why there's a problem. I thought, okay, well obviously it's not a problem at home or I'd know about it, right? So I went home, started Googling, got on the machine, and realized that New Brunswick has the highest levels of radon in the whole country. Okay, so can I stop you right there and ask — what's the reason for that? Like, why does New

4:40Brunswick have higher levels of radon? Yeah, for our listeners who don't know about radon, you're going to be able to explain this better than me, but it's from uranium in the soil and the rock, yeah. And so something about those particles in New Brunswick — yes, it's more present. It's a geological problem. Okay, it's not — it has nothing to do with any of us. It just — it's always been there. Our awareness is new; radon's not new, right? It's been around forever. As long as you've been

5:09here, radon's been there. Because three percent of the Earth's crust is made up of uranium, and uranium is a radioactive material, right? We hear that but we don't really understand what that means. So radioactive materials go through a decay process — they break down and they shoot off other materials. They break down from a rock and they could form gas or a metal or whatever, right? So they change. And when uranium breaks down, one of the byproducts is radon gas. It's a noble gas, so it's just floating around in the

5:41crust, hanging out. It comes up outside — on the sidewalks, wherever we're at, there's radon — but it's diluted with fresh air. So it's a radioactive gas. It's a radioactive gas, that's it. It clings to the dust in your house if it enters through the cracks in the foundation, through different penetrations. Yeah, yeah, and that's exactly — I love where you're throwing this stuff out, because that's kind of the knowledge that's out there, right? You're right and you're wrong at the same time. Okay, good. So radon is a

6:10natural gas. So when you look at a radioactive material, it breaks down — starts at uranium, and then it keeps breaking down. After radon, it goes to small little metals like polonium and bismuth, right? Those are the ones that stick on the dust. Radon doesn't stick to the dust; radon is a gas, it just floats around — it's noble, it's not sticky. So it'll float around, you breathe it in and actually breathe it out. Radon's not the problem, to be honest — it's the polonium and bismuth that the radon breaks down to.

6:38That's the problem, because you breathe radon in and it won't stick to your lungs — typically it'll breathe back out. But when radon breaks down it forms polonium and bismuth, small little molecules, and they're sticky. So the becquerel — the variable they're using, the amount per cubic meter present in your home — that's supposed to be within — they're looking at the breakdown of radon, they are looking at the disintegrations of radon per meter cubed, right? That's what becquerels are — it's how many disintegrations happen in

7:10a meter cubed. So they're looking at that. But what happens next after the disintegration is it forms another product — like radon was formed from uranium, radon then forms polonium and bismuth, these tiny tiny little pieces of metal that would be floating around. And they stick on the dust. When you breathe them in, they could get lodged in your lung, and when they go through the breakdown, they actually cause the cancer — they're the ones that hit your cells and damage that cell. But typically radon

7:43you'll breathe it in and breathe it out. It's kind of funny — we talk about radon, but radon's not it. It's the source — it's more just the labeling that it's been given. Exactly, right — the terminology. It's way sexier to say than polonium. Yeah, it is, actually. It is — radon. Yeah, exactly. So, again, for context for our listeners — yeah, you correct me if I'm wrong — try to come at this from someone, you know, which I am, that doesn't know very much about radon. And the fact that it's

8:12becoming more and more evident that it's an issue — compared to, say, asbestos pre-1980s. Hey, this substance, this hazardous material, is present. All of a sudden the World Health Organization or some other governing body is saying this is causing cancer, it's an issue, and then from that point on it becomes a huge thing — everyone's aware of it 20 years later, right? So this same kind of scenario happened with radon, say 10 years ago, say six years ago when you

8:42heard about it. It's becoming — and still there's not maybe enough awareness, a lot — yeah, which is definitely part of your motive. But it's the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking, according to the World Health Organization, right? So is there a certain point there where a governing body in the health sector sort of came in with this data and said, hey, we need to put a stop to this? Yeah, and I'll

9:10tell you what I know about the past, I guess, but like I said, seven years ago I was introduced, so prior to that my knowledge is just based on hearsay. Okay. But what happened was, about 25 years ago or so, the Americans — our friends to the South — they started their organization for radon. So they knew about it and were watching this, so they have their AARST — it's called the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists. Don't quote me — it's 20–25 years old, something like that. In Canada, our

9:39association's only 12 — I think it's our 12th conference next month. So we're only 12 years old. So CARST — C-A-R-S-T — exactly, right? Yeah, the Canadian Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists. Yes, yeah, exactly. So it's only been around for 12 years, so our knowledge here is not as old, I guess. We don't have as much history with radon. Canada has done some awesome things with radon as far as the way we fix radon — we're kind of ahead of a lot of places

10:11in the ways we fix it, because we diagnose and optimize systems. We put a lot of science behind our repair instead of just fixing a system, so there are some pretty cool differences that way and we're being looked at. But we're kind of the newest team in the game. So when I was down — that's why I learned about the States. I'm down there in the States and I hear about it, I come back and I'm doing research, and you ask, well, why is it there? Why is New

10:39Brunswick higher? Why are we higher? There's lots in Nova Scotia as well. I talk about New Brunswick because I live there and I'm certainly more familiar with their radon levels, but across the country New Brunswick is highest. I believe Saskatchewan is the next one. And that's an estimated percentage of houses that are above the action level — that's why I say they're high, right. So if it's above the action level, what's the exposure time? What's the risk that's involved there if a

11:11homeowner's listening, right? Or someone who's responsible for a school with hundreds of kids running around? Yeah. Is it a longevity thing — if it's not caught and you're exposed to it for years and years? Yeah, and I'm certainly not the doctor or the researcher, right, but it's long-term exposure. It's all about long-term exposure. The longer you're exposed to it, the more chances you have, right? So it just increases your risk.

11:40Risk level. So we're in the risk management business of radon — we're helping people avoid lung cancer risks. That's what we do. I'm not saying I'm going to cure your lung cancer, but I can keep you from being exposed to the risk, I guess. Yes. So it is long-term exposure. How long? It's a numbers game, right? So every time you breathe in radon, or radon progeny — or daughters — in and out, you're taking that risk of

12:12having one that lodges and then causes lung cancer. So it could take years or it could take days, I guess — it's a risk thing. So yeah. And would it be reasonable to — and I'm assuming you're going to agree with this obviously — if you've taken action, but like, every home should be tested for radon, every commercial building with traffic should be tested for radon? 100%. So why are we talking about it now? We weren't then, I guess. I was going down that road and I'll

12:41circle back to that. So I don't know when they changed this — I don't know the exact year — but I'm going to say 10 years ago or so, the action level in Canada was a lot higher than it is now. I don't want to say 'safe level' because it's an action level. There's no level of radon that's safe, and Health Canada says that on their website — like, you don't want any radon if you can help it. But it doesn't exist; there's radon outside, so there's always

13:06some level of radon. But no level is safe. They set an action level to say that if you're in a building or you're exposed to this level, you should fix it, you should do something about it — take action. You said there's radon outside, but that's not like a condensed radon within a space that you're occupying every day. It's diluted, right? Diluted — there's dilution, you're not going to be harmed by it. Exactly. Outside there's a little bit of radon coming up through the ground, it comes

13:32out of the Earth all the time, everywhere around us, and you're exactly right — it's radioactive gas. So that's the problem: when we're in a building or a home, we tighten it all up and make sure we keep our heat in, and that gives it a chance to build up, right? Because we're not diluting it anymore. We don't have dilution of outside air inside our buildings. So that's where it builds up. And it becomes — in Canada, I'm going to say 10 years ago,

14:00our action level was 800. You look at the OSHA standards for occupational safety and health — their level, they still talk about 800 becquerels as that action level. In residential homes, Health Canada set that action level at 200 — per cubic meter. So what happened when we dropped that level down? Now it's on the radar, right? Before, at 800, you weren't looking at it. Now it's over 200. So it certainly brings a lot more

14:32homes and buildings into the picture of risk. So yeah, that's why we're looking at it more now. So who's the governing body that you're answering to that's saying, hey, this is what the levels are, and — let me shift that — who's keeping people accountable on the commercial side, as building owners, as building operators, to have their building tested for radon and have it removed if it's a problem? Is there

15:00accountability? Not yet, not a lot, because that standard is high — it's still at 800 right now. There's talk about that changing, and we know it's going to change in the future — in the near future, it's going to change. It will come more in line with what we talk about residentially. There's a governing body — there's Health Canada, there's, you know, an environmental inspector that comes in and does a full assessment and the radon is red-flagged, and then — yeah, and I

15:29think it's really up to — right now today as we speak — it's more up to the organizations, the owners of the buildings, to do it if they feel that they should, I guess. Right, you know, there's no mandate to test a building every so often. You can say that. But then, if something is — and I mean this respectfully, but obviously you know this — if a building owner is not subject to it and it's not on his radar, even if it is

15:59harmful to the people that are there, and they might be occupying this building for several years and exposed to it — there's not going to be enough incentive there for money to be spent. No, you're exactly right. And we're trying — and that's not to diminish development, not at all. That's the way the world works, it's how it is, right? And we all know that. And we're trying to educate and get

16:26people on side without having the backbone, the teeth, to say you have to, right? So that's what you're saying is going to happen soon. Most definitely, yeah, it's coming, right? It's just the growth of our awareness — it takes time to get to that point. Yeah. And so the analogy from earlier, comparing it to the same sort of late '70s and '80s asbestos — kind of went through the same thing — this is very

16:50similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's certainly a different type of problem — it's not in our building products. I shouldn't say that; it can be in the products. It's not like — it can be in the products. It's not like it's in the concrete, in the building materials — well, you can, depending on what the raw materials were used from, right? So you know, I've heard of it in aggregates, exactly. Yeah, it's in three percent of the Earth's crust, so it's in some rocks and

17:18stuff that you're going to mine and take out. There's been talk about gypsum — yeah, I've heard of that. There's been some in gypsum, not in our areas, but in the Asian countries, I've heard about that, right — high levels of radon in big high-rise buildings, but not coming from the ground, coming from the building materials. Yeah, it's not something that's here. You might hear about it, and you'll see some talk about it — well, what about my granite countertops? I've

17:47heard people talk about that fairly often, right? Well, my granite could have it. Yes, it's possible it could have it. It's not what we need to be concerned with right now — it's coming from the ground that we need to be concerned with, in our area anyway. But that is a possibility, for sure. So does it matter how tight the foundation is, with the footings? A hundred percent. So that's where it's coming through — any cracks, any kind of

18:12protrusions in the concrete foundation. Yes, and it's all about air pressures, right? So I work in the air pressure world. In building science, we know what the stack effect is — you've heard of the stack effect? So the stack effect is the fact that heat rises, right? We all know heat rises. If you could see air like you could see water, it moves the same way — with currents, it goes in eddies, it goes around objects, and that kind of stuff, right. So air is

18:41always moving upwards because we heat our buildings. So when the air moves up, that creates a positive air pressure upstairs in the higher levels, and a negative air pressure down below. Okay. There's a neutral plane of air pressure in a building, in a house, and above that it's positive, below it's negative — that's how it works. So if you could picture our house like a chimney, right — it's basically a chimney. A house, a building — doesn't matter what I'm talking about — whatever's in contact with the ground, it's a chimney that's got the

19:11sides that are nice and insulated, right? We tighten them right up so that our heat is all rising up, and we're losing some out through the attic or in the upper levels. When we lose that air, we have to replace it. And the building replaces the air with air from outside — that's how it works. Our buildings are like vacuum cleaners on the earth, so they're always bringing in whatever air they need to replace the air going out at the top. We have to have that

19:37leveled out. So if radon is floating around the ground — which it is, in higher levels in some places — well, that radon-rich air is coming in, replacing the air that's going out at the top. And it's just a natural part of all buildings — it's how it happens. We can't stop the stack effect so much as to stop sucking on the ground. So we have to change the way where that air comes in and give it a new path. So that's what we do — we figure

20:08hypothetically, would an ICF foundation be less risk for radon than a concrete one? Does that make any difference? Is that a question you've been asked before? I don't know, but I was in an ICF house last week optimizing the system. It depends how their cold joint is made. ICF — the one I was in — the blocks are joined together. You mean when the floor meets the wall? The cold joint — right, that's one of the big problems. You can have an open sump pit,

20:38you get a highway coming in. But the cold joint, where the floor meets the wall — that joint is an easy route for radon to come in, and any soil gases. Today — and now I can speak about New Brunswick; I don't know the Nova Scotia rules, but I believe they are following the same things — we have to have radon rough-in pipes, and we have to have good substrate underneath, and they have to seal the cold joint in our buildings now. It's part of the

21:072010 building code of Canada that we have to have a nicely sealed cold joint, foundation to wall — for other reasons other than radon, or that radon? It's all radon. Okay. So that was in 2010 in the building code? Yeah, 2010 building code of Canada. In New Brunswick, they adopted that in 2015. There are different provinces that haven't adopted it yet — they're doing bits and parts, it's all different across. But in New Brunswick it was adopted in 2015. So this is probably an issue that concrete

21:36foundation contractors are going to be more aware of in the future. Yes, most definitely, ready or not. And we're only 12 years old, like I said, so we're making steps, we're going in the right direction. Yeah. Not everyone knows exactly why they're doing what they need to do, and the why behind it makes it easier to do it right. If you understand why you're doing things — so we've got rough-in pipes that are mandatory now in new construction, so

22:03they're supposed to put collector pipes underneath the floor, across the footings, and collect air from all of the foundation zones — collect more of that air and have it released outside of the internal space. Well, they don't release it — they collect it. It's supposed to be pipes to collect, and then it comes up and it's a stub point, a stub pipe. It's a rough-in. So if the levels are high and they test after they move in, then they call someone like me, a professional, and we

22:30hook onto that. So they stub it, and it's radon-ready. Okay, it's a rough-in — it's not fixed yet. Okay, but you need that in place in order to solve the problem, or can you solve the problem when that's not in place? There are lots of houses that are already built — yeah, and obviously you can. But it costs more and takes more work. Yeah, it's a tougher grind to get there sometimes,

22:52because of the substrate, right? So when I go into a house or a building like this building, I don't know what's underneath the floor, right? But I've got to work under the floor. I need to get airflow moving under that floor to my pipes and my fan,

23:21so I need to cross footing sections. If you've got footings under your slab, sub-slab footing compartments will stop airflow moving sometimes, right? So if you've got a square footing and you have gravel in the middle but I don't have my suction in there, I'm not getting any airflow there, right? So I've got to get in early days when they're setting things up and doing the footings — and I need sleeves through the footings — and I need

23:48to put some pipes in the aggregate that they're going to put under the slab, the substrate, and get my pipes in there to collect air. Like you said, is that the way to fix it? Yes, it's the way that we should move forward. But I don't have that luxury in all the homes that already exist. I can't get in and cross the footings. Most of the homes that already exist — you wouldn't have that. Not at all. That would be only in the last five years, locally.

24:10That's a concrete contractor — the footings are going down, replacing some of these. Typically, it's the plumbers a lot of the time. By default, the plumbers are there, digging in the gravel and putting their pipes in, and this is a pipe, so it's an easy add-on — put that pipe in there, right? We need the radon pipe in. What's that for? Well, just put it in, right? So it's good unless the site super says I

24:41don't think we allowed for that. Fair enough, yeah. Yeah, I understand. And the plumber charges for it, for sure, yeah — it's an add-on for sure. Right, well — you want me to put another fixture in? I'm going to charge you for it, right. And the reason the plumber is doing it is because there's not enough guys out there talking about it yet. So I've started doing that locally in the Moncton area, residentially to start. Okay, with home builders. So last year

25:06we did rough-ins for all of MoeMar Homes — they're a home builder in Moncton. Okay, a big builder as well. And good on them for seeing the problem. He's taking a step — hats off to them — because they didn't only put the rough-in in. I put an active system in every house they built. Yeah. So the rough-in is that pipe that is just there so that it's ready. The active system — I connect my pipes to it and a fan, an inline fan, the full

25:37release vented outside. So it's an active sub-slab depressurization system. Okay. So we put that in every house they built. You put that in the house — that means that if radon's present, it's going to go outside anyway, it's never going to be a problem. Exactly. I can guarantee you safe levels of radon when I put a system in. Okay. Good segue into testing. You sell some testing gear — is it reasonable for a homeowner to think, hey, I can just go buy this testing gear and

26:00test it myself, just like I'll test my water? Like that — does that happen? 100%, yeah, and they should. Yes. And it's the easiest way. So you sell it, but they can also get it at any hardware store, can they not? Yeah, so I only sell it to make it accessible, right. Yeah, yeah. They're very easy — is it a money maker for you? Not at all, absolutely not. I'd rather sell them at cost, right. It's not — you can test your own home for forty or fifty dollars.

26:27Yeah, it's not expensive — without being a professional, you don't have to know what you're doing. It's when you have higher levels and you need to do something about it that you've got to call someone in, like — the fix, yeah. The fix is complicated. I feel it's not complicated because I've been studying for seven years, but it is complicated because you're dealing with air pressures, right? There are some people that do it themselves, and hats off to them, right. But there are warnings that I

26:51have on that — in that you can cause other problems by trying to fix your radon problem. Because depressurizing the house — you can depressurize your home. Like Tim Allen said, you put the biggest fan in, right? You put a 3000 CFM fan in, and you can suck as much air as you want under that floor and spit it outside. You're gonna fix your radon problem, but you could cause other issues — energy penalties, or depressurization when you have combustibles in the home, like you've got

27:19a wood stove. Well, now you're sucking so much air out of the house with a big fan that you can depressurize that house, and you can blow out pilot lights and natural gas appliances — that kind of stuff. So there are issues that you can cause by fixing it, because we're dealing with this depressurization and pressurization of a home. Okay, yeah. And that's really — remember I said earlier that Canadians, we've kind of come a long way — we started late but we're ahead of

27:47the game in some ways. I was in Kansas two weeks ago. I was invited down to take an advanced diagnostic and optimizing radon mitigation course by Kansas State University, and Bruce Need is one of the instructors there. He's been in the radon world since 1988. He told me — I had a great chat with him — he's an early adopter, big time. Yeah, like the grandfather of radon in the States. The godfather. Yeah, exactly. There's two or three of the guys that got it started, you know, they wrote the

28:16codes, right. Yeah. So it's very interesting. I don't know where I was going with that one. With Bruce — yes. So in Canada, we are mandated when we fix a home to take air pressure differentials and fix it properly, like to really dial it in, so that we're only offsetting the stack effect and we're not causing an energy penalty. In the States they don't do that — they drill a hole, put a fan and pipes in, and then they fix it — which I'm not

28:51faulting them. That's just — they were so far ahead of us in time that they didn't know enough to do it a little bit differently. So now they're teaching their guys. We went down there, it was really interesting. So we were the only Canadians in the room — about 25 of us. And they — the fan technology, Tim Hortons coffee with the maple syrup. Yeah, exactly, oh yeah yeah, they like all that stuff. They commented on the way I speak quite a bit. Oh yeah? Yeah, my

29:19"bouts" and my A's and — yeah, yeah. No, but that's interesting — you're the only Canadians there. And just, well, they were teaching these guys that have been radon mitigators for 20 years down there how to diagnose and really design the system properly, which is what we do every day. They don't — for them it's like an optional deal, and for us it's mandatory. So it was kind of interesting. We learned some stuff from them — I'm not saying that we went down there and just

29:46talked about what we do every day. But they really focus on the install, which puts downward pressure on their pricing on their installs, because it's not engineered, it's not designed, it's just a system. Our prices on our radon mitigations are probably five times higher than theirs in Canada, because of what we do first. I go into a house, someone calls me and says, how much to fix my house? Okay, I've got radon levels — I tested my house, it's high — how much is it

30:16going to cost? So it's anywhere from two to eight grand — like, that is that, right? Yeah, that's a good range. And that's my answer — I don't know, I don't know yet. I need to go in and diagnose the house and figure out what pressures I'm dealing with, and where is it coming from, where can I exhaust it, where can I put my pipes? They don't want it in the middle of their family room, right? No one wants that. It's a four-inch PVC pipe with a

30:39fan. I think they're pretty sexy, but no one else does. The fans, you mean? Yeah, the whole system. Of course you do — you're making money. Yeah, well, they're awesome, right? It looks — and we do a good job, it looks nice and straight — but people don't want that in their family room when they're trying to watch the 250-inch TV, right? So it's not — not because of a noise factor or anything like that? No, there's some noise but not much — you can minimize that for sure. But

31:00no, it's just running all the time — 24 hours a day, it runs all the time. Yeah, definitely, forever. It's a system of the house. That is sexy. Yeah, it is, it is. But you don't want it in the living room, so we put it in the mechanical room. And they're in the corner of a house typically, right? Front, back — in the basement, one of the corners of the house, you have your mechanical room. The rest of it, we want to finish it, right — live in

31:24it. So I want to put my pipe in there. But if you picture the rectangle of a basement footprint, and I'm going in one corner, do I get airflow in the diagonal corner way over here because of those footings? Like a typical bungalow with a support wall down the middle — am I going to cross that footing or not? I don't know. So if you're testing — whether it be a home — let's say it's two or three thousand square foot — well, that would be a

31:46big — talking about just the foundation, sure, a footprint. But or a commercial — is it like, every thousand square feet you're testing maybe six different areas? Is it like, how many different areas of airflow do you need to test to be sure? That's a great question. And there's different regulations for residential and commercial, right? So residentially, we say to test the lowest lived-in area that's occupied for more than four hours a day. Okay, so you're not going to test the

32:11furnace room? No, it's going to be higher in there. That's a real mitigator — if it's a living room in the basement, that's where you're going. Perfect. A bedroom, a living room — that's the perfect spot to test. Yeah. My rule of thumb when I go into a property — or a man cave. Yeah, exactly! You're dreaming about that, man. Yeah, yeah. So when I go into a home, I'll typically — you know, it's all about conversations with the homeowner, right? Like, what do you plan to do in the space?

32:36Maybe they just moved in and they're going to finish a family room — you don't know, right? So I'll usually inform my clients that they should test in the finishable space if they plan to finish that space. Or maybe they go down and work out in the gym in an unfinished room and lift some weights down there — well, then that's where you want to test. As a radon mitigator getting paid to fix it, the sump pit is the best place to test, because that's the

33:01highest levels. But that's not reality. Well, that's the biggest hole — that's the biggest thing — it's going to be higher down here, right? So radon stays kind of low. But we always tell people to test where they're breathing, right? So you test at breathing height, you test in that lowest lived-in area. If you have a crawl space, you're not going to put it in the crawl space down below, because no one lives down there, right? Hopefully not — you'd have other issues.

33:38Yeah, for sure. So we don't test down there, but we'll test in that finishable or livable space, I guess, right? So they test in that area, and that brings us into any conversation about how do you test, and how long is it. I said it's $40–$50, right? So the typical test — what Health Canada recommends — is a long-term test. Okay, 90 days or more. Exactly right, yeah. You got that? You ready? You

34:06did that? Yeah, that's awesome, nice. And the reason why — the why's are always easy to understand things if you understand the why. When I tell people long-term — like, I don't want to wait that long. Well, the reason why is, when we talk about radioactivity, there are standards on your yearly radiation exposure, right? So we want to know how much radon, or how much radiation, you're exposed to every year. Well, the way to do that, the best test is one year. Now you know how much radiation

34:36you've been exposed to that year. So if you do shorter than that, well, now you're extrapolating the information. You're taking this small little snapshot and expanding it out. Health Canada said 90. Yeah, 90 days — that's that minimum number to be able to extrapolate to a year. So 90 days is the best option. Now, they also say that we should test during the winter, during the winter season, and that's only because our windows

35:06and doors are closed, our heat is on, that stack effect I talked about is at its peak, right? So we're heating the house, so that envelope is as tight as it's going to be in the winter, right? Like right now, everything's closed up — hopefully. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that chimney effect is at its highest in the wintertime. So that natural draw of the house that you can't see is actually working overtime in the

35:32wintertime. So you want to test during those months. Now, I always say typically, because there are buildings and houses that in the middle of summer, with the air conditioning on and all the windows closed, could be higher as well. Yeah, and we have seen that — there are some interesting anomalies, I guess, right. But typically, that's why you'll see most of the commercial places or government bodies that are testing will only test during the winter months. You can still test right now and go

36:00three months, you know, as long as you're on that shoulder season as well as your heat's on — that's kind of the rule of thumb. You can test during the summer. Typically if I have a client that's going to test in the summer, I'll tell them to leave it a little longer. Yeah, right, go into the winter season. It must make it hard on the East Coast then, because within the last month here in Halifax we've had some days that were plus 10 and then it's minus 4 for two days.

36:20Exactly, it's all over the place. Yeah, that climate-wise is really changing — it's very interesting. So, 90-day test — here's what I'm going to bring up: real estate transactions. Okay, people test their water in their house when they buy real estate, when they buy it. And so radon is right there, almost. Well, that's when you're thinking about your house the most, right — when you're buying it. But they don't have 90 days of due diligence to do a test — it's too

36:50tight for the closing date. Yeah, so we get into short-term testing — that happens 30 days or less, or four days. So we do have a guideline that we can do a four-day screening assessment. In the States they do it in two days, and they'll base a decision. Yeah, exactly — let's just call it speed radon. And I don't fault them for it again — they were there earlier, right, they're first to the race, I guess. So they set up rules and

37:17guidelines. They do a two-day test and they base a decision to mitigate or fix a house on that two-day result. In Canada we're cautious, right? We're a little bit more cautious, and we've had time to figure this out and talk about it. So we do what's called — we don't do short-term testing, we do a short-term screening assessment. We've changed the words, so it's not a test. No one else knows it but us, I guess — they don't think about that. But we've done it for that reason,

37:45and we always recommend a long-term follow-up to that short term. Okay, so we kind of give them an answer, but it's — do a long-term test before you do the mitigation. So we typically use a CRM, a continuous radon monitor. So in your home test that you're going to buy for $40 or $50 — that's a passive system, it just looks like a little hockey puck, actually. I've got one here I can show you. You play some street hockey here?

38:17Well, that's what happens with those when there's kids and dogs and pets — they go missing. Yeah, we tack them to the wall now. Yeah. So in those homes you just put that in the home, leave it for three months. With a short-term test, the best advice is to use a higher-end testing device. So we use a continuous radon monitor, which will take radon levels every hour and plot it on a graph. But it also looks at air pressure, relative humidity,

38:44and temperature. Because we're dealing with real estate transactions sometimes — well, that seller wants the numbers to be low. But you're talking about some different gear here, right, to do these. Most definitely — more expensive. Yeah, yeah, it's expertise. $1,500 or $2,000 piece of equipment versus $40 bucks, exactly. Yeah. So that test — you know, retail depending on where they are — it can be anywhere from $250 to $300 for that test. So it's not mandatory yet for the radon test to be done — like a water test is, right?

39:11Or is a water test mandatory? It's mandatory for banks when you have a mortgage. Yes, residentially. Do you foresee radon being mandatory here at some point? Fingers crossed. Obviously good for you. There's one county in one state in the States that has it mandatory — in Maryland — that's the only place I've heard of so far. So it's happening down there, but, you know, if you look at the States and see what they've done and what's going to come to us — possibly. What about a commercial

39:41property changing hands as well? Yeah, it's not mandatory for sure. No, no, no, no. Can we talk a little bit about commercial? Most definitely. You're servicing lots of homes. You say the newer homes that are being built, you're involved with the home builder, and they're establishing and installing precautions and the rough-ins, yeah, to make sure that this isn't a problem. And then all the existing homes that you're doing. And then you're

40:11also doing some work in PEI and Nova Scotia for homes as well as New Brunswick. What about commercial? You've mentioned before we went on air that you've done several in Nova Scotia, and I'm sure some in New Brunswick — yeah. Is that work coming from a GC? Is it the building owner? Who are you providing the service to? Great question. So right now, a lot of it tends to be government bodies, right? So in New Brunswick, for example, every

40:39school has been tested and repaired for radon — all the schools are done in New Brunswick. Yeah. Can you say the same thing for the other provinces? No, not all of them. But there are some that are, and I apologize — well, let's hope someone from Nova Scotia is listening — I should know the Nova Scotia numbers, but I'm pretty sure the Nova Scotia schools are done as well. I'm pretty sure they are. We're ahead of the game in Canada. So that must be quite recent that they've

41:00yeah, over the last seven or eight years — they've done some stuff. Yeah, for sure. And you've been involved obviously in some of that, or no? Not the schools — it was before my time. That was done before I kind of got into it. An environmental company of some kind was in there, exactly. Yeah, for sure. Now they're putting rough-ins. So for example, I know that the new Moncton High School that was built in the last five years — they built

41:22that outside of Moncton — there was a tender out to repair that school. So that tells me it was tested, levels were higher, they had the rough-in systems — they crossed the footings, they do that stuff in the engineering drawings — when they built it. So that we can connect on and go up and vent it out. I didn't do that repair job, so another mitigator did. Okay. This is a new school? It's a retrofit? Brand new school. That was a brand new school. And so there was

41:47rough-in installed before radon mitigation — most definitely, yeah. That's being specked from the entry point. It's not a Canadian standard but they're following an American standard for commercial. So that wouldn't just go for schools — it would, you know, any — exactly, right, with high traffic. Yeah, typically the engineers are doing that. What about multi-res though? And people are living in those builds — and I haven't seen the plans yet, but I'm sure they're getting

42:14ready for it. But it's not fixed, right? Nothing says you have to fix the house — they're just doing a rough-in so that it's easier to fix later. And there's no mandate to test. So we're getting into that point where the buildings are getting ready to be fixed. Okay, but there's no mandatory testing requirement. We, as an association, certainly go out to the multi-unit residential property managers and that stuff. And I did a course last year for property managers across the country.

42:43Okay, so you're educating the property manager about this. Most definitely, yeah, yeah, for sure. So we've started doing that. Like I said, our association's only 12 years old, so we're very new at getting stuff out. And that's a national association. That's a national association, yeah. So I'm the vice president of the national association. So I'm the vice president of CARST — the Canadian Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists — and I've been involved in organized radon nationally for — this will be my sixth year next year. So I was

43:09on the board of directors for the first three years as a director, and then was voted in as vice president. So it's been two years, going into my third year as vice president. Yeah, it's great — it's awesome. I love being involved. We're going to Victoria next month. Yeah, so take the whole family? Yeah, I'm taking my wife anyway. Now the kids — the kids aren't coming, I'm just keeping them here in Halifax. How old are the kids? I was looking on your website there. Yeah, so — and it's probably

43:41up to date now — my kids are 20 and 18 this year. Okay, yeah. So I've got one graduating from high school, and they'll be coming down here to Nova Scotia, actually, to Halifax. That's cool. SMU, or NSCC, or — dad? So I have one right now at NSCAD, okay, yeah, second year at NSCAD. So the art school. And my second child is going to come down here and go to flight attendant school, actually, is what they're talking about. So they have a

44:07flight school here? Yeah, they have a flight attendant school. Yeah, yeah — I think that's something they want to do. I'm like, go travel — that's awesome, that's a great idea. Yeah, they're not — that's actually really smart, because I mean, you know, right out of high school, take a couple of years, you should travel. Yeah, exactly. Not sure what you want to do — don't waste it. None of us knew, we

44:28yeah, yeah. So they must have the entrepreneurial gene as well? Or do you sense that? Well, they have to — it's in our blood. They call it the entrepreneurial spirit for a reason. Exactly, yeah. So my family has an entrepreneurial background. My grandfather, and every one of his kids, and every one of his grandkids — we all own businesses, every single one of my family. Wow, we're all entrepreneurs — all my cousins, all my uncles. Wow, that's really saying something. Yeah, yeah. We have a big background in the car business —

44:56a big background. Family gatherings must be interesting. Yeah, no, well, yes — there was, there was — not a joke, not anymore, but there was. Yeah, so my grandfather started a couple of car dealerships in New Brunswick. He was the first Toyota dealership in Atlantic Canada — in Moncton. And then Seaside Chevrolet — he started that in the '70s. So, okay. We did have some competition — there were two uncles there that

45:31were in competition. It's good to get some stories and good for our listeners to know a little more about you. Sure, about yourself. So yeah, I think we were discussing the commercial buildings. Commercial buildings, yeah, yeah. So you were providing that service to — you're saying the building owner, yeah? And, you know, you've got to watch what you say with telling tales about a school, so I'm not going to name names of corporations. But no,

45:56sorry, just go back — what I said. You said it was mostly governing bodies that you were answering to, right? Yes, and that makes sense, because they've got a motive, right? Exactly, they're doing it first. Yeah, they're doing it first. But do you foresee — I'll let you continue the thought there that you just mentioned. Yeah, so government bodies are the first ones, the natural ones, to do it, right? Like the schools and that kind of stuff — out of necessity, and they need to. So this is

46:19the school board, yeah. Or, you know, I'm not sure what the term is — it's provincially regulated, right? So it would be a provincial education board, I would say. I don't know who made that decision, but good on them for doing it. Yeah. And then you start seeing some other government bodies, like post offices or border controls, that kind of stuff, right? So you're seeing that happening in those government bodies. Okay, and then you're seeing some commercial enterprises

46:45that are big businesses that will look at it. And I'm not going to name a business, but banks, for example, right? That have several locations across Nova Scotia. Hey, that's all over the place. So then they start testing — that's their protocol. Yeah, exactly. It's not like you're dealing with that many private building owners, even if they are the owner of 200 units or a thousand — it's just not on the radar yet, right? But the nice thing is, when the government bodies do

47:11it, then the people that work at those government agencies are getting awareness, right? When I'm in their building and they're saying, what are you doing here? What is this you're fixing? I educate them, right? So it's another contribution to the awareness. The big businesses like the banks, for example — well, they have a lot of buildings, they have a lot of bricks and mortar, right? So they're taking that step next, which is a great sign. That means it's going to keep coming and keep

47:40rolling, right? So good for you. It's repeat work, I mean. Yeah, one, and hopefully you're doing 10 locations. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And you're solving a bigger problem. Yeah, we did a couple of banks in Nova Scotia just last year — okay, I'm not going to say which ones — but I think what they did is they tested a small percentage first, and then they repaired what they needed to, and now they'll start opening that up and start testing more. So it's the start of it, in my opinion — we're really

48:05early days. So can you take us through — like, when you get contracted by that bank and you have a few different locations in Nova Scotia, that means travel for you — is it different, the process commercial-wise compared to residential? It's basically the same thing, just you're in a commercial building and not in someone's home. It's very similar but different, because construction is different, right? Yeah. And so it's different that way. We're dealing sub-slab, so in a house

48:34it's pretty easy for me to look — there's the plumbing pipe, it probably goes over here, and I've got to avoid that. With commercial, sometimes you know the sub-slab is different. There may be, depending on the age of the building, lots of stuff under there — lots of services that you have to avoid, and that kind of stuff. Different footing regions as well, right? You know, your typical home is going to have maybe one strip footing, but your commercial building could have

48:58a lot of strip footings in there, for your support. So that makes it tougher, or more challenging. One of the banks that we did was old — like, old-old — over 100 years old. Wow, yeah, very, very — that was very interesting. It was a heritage property, yeah, I would say. It would have been, yeah, okay, yeah. It was very interesting. The exterior wall was 36 inches that we had to core through the wall assembly. Yeah, was it all masonry

49:25or all concrete? It was all different — yeah, yeah, everything in there. With granite, and brick, and stone — the whole works, all the way through. It's very interesting. Pretty cool. Yeah, it's a lot of character in these old buildings. You know, my home inspection background — I love building porn. Yeah, that was a cool one. Very, very interesting. So yeah, there's so much history in the building methods and what was going on at that time. Exactly, and what was it used for and

49:58yeah, yeah. It was neat — it was a challenge — it was very interesting. And so in that, you were talking about, like, how does that work? Yeah, well for those, they talk to an engineer of course, right? So they get engineering companies that would go out and do the testing to determine if they need to fix it. Of course, I'm only there if the levels are higher than they want, whatever standard they set. There is a government-mandated

50:22standard of 800 — in commercial — and 200 in homes, exactly, right? Now, some of those, if they're doing this testing — the corporations that have decided to test — they may look at it and say, well, listen, 800 is the number, but if it's 600, I'm going to fix it, because I know what the residential standard is, too, right? So they're getting ahead of the game, basically. They're doing this early. That's why we didn't talk about it a lot

50:48when it was 800 in houses 10 years ago — that was our level, so yeah, you just weren't going to find that many homes where it was over that. Yeah, a small percentage over 800, right. But now it's just well known that those levels above 200 are just dangerous enough that something needs to be done. Yeah. Well, the United States — they fix it at 147, because they don't have the same measurements, of course. Right, so that equals 147. 147, yeah. There are four picocuries per

51:14liter, which is 147 in our world. So not that our lungs are any stronger — we can't withstand that any more than they can. We just play hockey better. Yeah, exactly, that's it. In Europe, there are some countries that set their action level at 100 — so it's even lower, half of what ours is. Yeah. Are there places in Europe or other places globally that are way ahead, or is the US setting the standard? Now, the

51:41World Health Organization has been at this for a while, okay, most definitely, yeah. I talk about the US because it's our closest neighbor to the South, and they're ahead of us a bit. Three percent uranium in rock, soil, and aggregate and stuff — but it's not like it's way higher in South America or anything. Canada's a good one — Canada's where it's high. Yeah, yeah. And it's geological. We kind of started talking about that a little bit, so we'll circle back to that. But yeah,

52:08geologically, in New Brunswick, we're at the top of the Appalachian mountain chain, right? So the Appalachian Mountains come up the east coast — the Eastern Seaboard — and there's a geological deposit of minerals and stuff, which is New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and there's lots of uranium, there's lots of stuff there. They want to mine all kinds of different stuff here, right? Uranium is just one of the things that we have lots of, and that just creates radon. In radiation they talk about half-life, right? Radioactive

52:39material has a half-life. So the half-life of uranium is like three billion years. That means that in three billion years you're going to have half as much uranium as you did today. So it's not going away — it's going to be here longer than all of us. It's a long time, a long time. Yeah, half-life is what they talk about. Okay. Radon's half-life is 3.8 days, so every 3.8 days half of the radon's gone. But uranium is chugging along — it's just producing it forever, right? So that's why, and

53:18that's why we want to test for longer term. Because radon does this — it goes up and down, right? The hour-to-hour — I can — if a home has higher levels of radon, I can see fluctuations of two or three hundred becquerels from hour to hour, in real time. It's — so it does this. So the short-term test, you might only see a small little part of the results. So if you have a low and you do a short-term test, it's artificially low — maybe just low for those four days,

53:45or two days. That's why we went to four instead of two — so we get a little bit better picture. The long-term kind of smooths that out and you just get that average over the long term. That's why the government wants that 90-day test, right? It's interesting — with your background too, in home inspection, building inspection — you know, it sounds like with Radon Repair Inc., you're doing work in the different provinces. We haven't talked about Newfoundland, but

54:10you mentioned there's nobody over there specializing in it. So obviously there's lots of opportunity and maybe more of a need to solve the problem there. But you're not just helping solve the problem with your business — you're educating people, you're on the board as vice president with the national association. And you have a team working with you at Radon Repair. Like — yeah, yeah. Show us a little bit about the company. Yeah, so our company, it's been

54:33— not hibernation, that's not the word I'm trying to say — it's been percolating for six years for me, right? Like, I did focus on my other businesses for the last number of years because they were the busier ones. They were the child that needed the attention at the time, right? So that's where all the focus has been for me. But with the changes that happened last year, with my inspection business — we're no longer offering those services.

54:57I've really put a lot of focus on the radon, and it's — I've always had one guy in radon, okay, for the last six years. Yeah. Now we have five. There are five of us at it all the time. That's saying something, though. Yeah, it's grown a lot. Yeah, and it's not done — it's going to keep growing for sure. We talked about Newfoundland — there are no certified mitigators in Newfoundland. There's now no one certified on Prince Edward Island; there was one person and they

55:23retired from their job, so they're not certified there anymore. So there's just — it's that Newfoundland opportunity — it's just like, you know, it's a travel — business-wise, I mean, yeah, maybe set up an office over there. It's a much bigger deal than just driving a few hours to PEI or New Brunswick. I haven't done any work in Newfoundland. I've certainly expressed my interest in going if there's someone over there with high levels — you need to get three or four of them together to make it

55:51feasible for someone, right? Because the expense would be too high. But I am hearing from the board that there's someone who's maybe taking their courses right now from Newfoundland, so that's awesome — that's great. Great for Newfoundlanders, and great for radon there as well, right? So we, as a board, are going to support whoever wants to get into this and help out their area, right? So yeah. Prince Edward Island — I'm sure there's, I

56:18don't know of anyone in training right now. We're certainly covering it. PEI is part of the Health Canada study from 2012. They did 14,000 houses in 2012 — Health Canada, across the country. And that's where I don't just make up my number and say New Brunswick's the worst — it's from those stats, yeah. It's pretty decent data, yeah. 14,000 is not bad. In New Brunswick, on that stat — and I apologize, I don't have all of the provinces in my head — New Brunswick's

56:47stat was 24.8 percent of homes were above 200. And that's — which is — so, one quarter of the homes that are above — yeah, existing homes already. And that's because it's just in the ground, right? There's lots of uranium there. Yeah. So I believe Saskatchewan was like 18 — I think it was 18 something. That's considerably lower than the second. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Now you see those numbers, and then in real life, what we're seeing now — I've heard some high numbers coming out from the West.

57:16Like, high numbers in houses. Myself, the highest level I've ever seen was 8,500 in a house. Right, yeah. And no one knew it. Might be the red dirt, right? Red dirt, yeah. I was in PEI last week — uranium makes it red. What is it? It's iron, iron. Exactly, yeah. But you know, I played in the red dirt last week — yeah, we fixed two houses last week in PEI, playing in the red dirt. I did that for, yeah, 20

57:44years — still doing everything well. You can see my forearms here on this podcast — they're usually scratched up, because I dig through the dirt. That was from last night? No, they weren't that tough on me. We deal with sub-slab, but through a 5-inch core, okay — that's all we drill. Yeah, so we drill a 5-inch hole, then you've got to remove 10 gallons of dirt — wow — through the hole, with your hand and your little tools and stuff, right. So we were digging in the red

58:13dirt, and it's because they didn't use much gravel under that house that I was in. Like, I was in a house over in PEI — it was a two-year-old house — oh yeah — only an inch of gravel on the substrate and then native soil, and you're in the red dirt. So we're digging through all that stuff to create a void under the floor, so that we can introduce suction and have a bigger suction pit — the bigger the pit, the better the airflow underneath. Okay,

58:38right. So yeah, we're digging in dirt all the time. Yeah, yeah. So where do you see — not just the business opportunity for yourself, but where you can make the most impact with the goal of resolving this niche problem with radon? In Nova Scotia, do you see yourself basically doing more homes and getting into more commercial buildings here? Where's the opportunity? Kind of where do you see things going over the next few years? That's a great question.

59:08You know, I'd love for all the homeowners to test their homes and do something with it, but that's going to take time — that's just going to roll out. I think commercially is our best opportunity right now. Commercially is to get those building owners on side to do the — it starts with them. Because once they're doing it — like I said — you go into that commercial zone and that creates the awareness for all the employees and all the people that live there, right? So

59:34they're all getting it. I believe that's where we need to go. And I think a big thing, a big help in that direction, would be reducing that OSHA standard from 800 to 200 — that would make a big difference, right? So yeah, because like you said, they're not going to do it unless they have to. There's going to be a mandate there. And really, when you think about it — and I probably am missing some variables — you know, there's more people at risk in

59:58these commercial buildings, and more traffic, and more areas where people are active for at least four hours. Yeah, yeah, most definitely. It's certainly important. You know, we're in our houses and we sleep in our houses, so we're there for a period of time. But at work, you're there all day long — you're probably in your workspace more than you're at home sleeping, a lot of times, right? So yeah, we're exposed a lot at work. Yeah, yeah. I believe that's where it'll

60:26go. I think that commercial stuff will pick up. As we do new construction, we're building the rough-ins into the new construction. But there's a lot of buildings that need to be retrofitted, right? There's a lot of stuff that we need to deal with. Yeah. We're focused on energy efficiency in our homes and buildings, and that's a good thing — it's good for energy and all the rest of it. But when you increase the energy efficiency in a building, you increase the radon. And that's not just me saying it —

60:55there are studies — it's real. And it's because you're increasing that stack effect, right? You're tightening up that envelope. You're not diluting anymore — you've reduced the dilution, it's a lot stronger. It is, yeah. So it's interesting to talk about that. We're starting to have communication and conversations with energy advisors across the country and that kind of stuff. So are you connected with organizations like Efficiency Nova Scotia, or some of these other bodies like that? I don't believe

61:23we have, as an association, yet. You know, myself — I'm just one guy, right? But our association is certainly trying all different angles. We have policy people, we have researchers, we have all different kinds of people — and people like me that do the work. Those things take time, right? Yeah. And 12 years — you know, we've only been able to do so much, right. We've done a lot. We've certainly broken the ice in a lot of places, but there's lots of work ahead of us to

61:46do, and we'll keep doing it, we'll just keep pushing it, right? But yeah. Well, no, it sounds like a problem that at least we have someone like you locally who's kind of leading the charge. And certainly we've had guests in the past — I think it was Altech Environmental and some other building science groups that we've talked to — and radon keeps coming up. So yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's been great chatting with you. It sounds like you might be in the Halifax or Nova

62:13Scotia area a little bit more, with both your kids continuing education here. So maybe we'll have you back at some point. But it's been great to hear about your business and hear about this growing issue, and kind of get a crash course on radon. And hopefully our listeners, whether they're homeowners or project managers or owners of properties, will put more on their radar and they'll know to reach out to

62:40you. We'll be tagging you and Radon Repair in all of our content and stuff. And yeah, I just want to thank you for doing this. Well, thanks, really appreciate it. Just a couple of quick words before we go — so yes, I'm Radon Repair, right? We fix houses, we'd love to fix everyone's house. I'm not going to fix everyone's house — I know that. I'm part of the association, so what I would advise — if anyone's out there

63:03listening and they want more information — sure, go to the association's website. So CARST — C-A-R-S-T dot CA. And on there you can find certified professionals all across the country. There's a database — you can click on your province, find who's a measurement professional, who's a mitigation professional. And I'd really implore everyone — you can test your house on your own, that's not a problem, and we'll put those links in the description box. Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah, for sure. And so reach out to those guys if you're

63:32going to fix it — get a C-NRPP certified professional to do it, because they're going to do that diagnosis, they're going to figure out the air pressure differentials, and they're going to optimize that system, so you're not creating energy penalties and you're not creating other problems with it. So test it yourself if you want, but if you need to fix it, get a professional. Most definitely, yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Anything else you want to tag or give a

64:00shout-out to while you're here, Jeff, before we finish up? That's a great question and I wasn't prepared for that. I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot — I just kind of abruptly — you know, we're at our time limit. Sometimes we could talk for days, and I know you've got places to be, so I just like to keep track of the time. Yeah, for sure. No, I really think the association — get people going towards the association — I think it's the best

64:22thing. Of course our company is there and our website's there, so if there's any information they're looking for, reach out to us. But really, there's lots of information online. When they look online, the American information is a little bit different. We didn't get into that, but we put our fans and our pipes inside the conditioned space in Canada — they put them on the outside. Okay, but think about it: at -30, it's just going to freeze up, right? We've got lots of humidity in those

64:49pipes and it'll freeze right over. So we don't do it that way. There are some weird differences in the information you're going to find online. Look at the Canadian stuff if you're in Canada looking at it, of course. Okay, yeah, right — that sounds good, man. Well, thanks, thanks again — it's been a great time. Thank you very much. Yeah, great to be here, great meeting you guys. And yeah, I'll come back and take the kids out for lunch, so we'll get

65:11together again for sure. For sure, sounds good, man. Awesome — cheers. Thank you. Okay, this episode is brought to you by Cook Insurance, your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for 50 years. Insurance is complex, and the Cook team focuses on delivering comprehensive solutions for your construction needs, including builders risk, wrap-up liability, performance bonds, and project-specific construction. A Navacord partner since 2020, Cook is one of the largest construction brokers in Canada and offers national strength with a local touch. Whatever your insurance needs are, Cook has you covered. We would like to

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