Technical and public policy considerations and development of a code for control of radon in residences

Building codes that address radon control in residential buildings are a relatively new development in the larger trend toward increased efforts to understand and control indoor air quality. A residential radon construction standard has been developed in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States The Northwest Residential Radon Standard (NRRS) seeks to provide a measured public policy response that is commensurate with current knowledge of both the health risk and the state of building science. This paper reviews the range of potential public policy responses available to deal with radon as a public health problem, describes the policy framework on which the NRRS is structured, and explains the development process. Time and budget constraints limited the scope of the NRRS to identifying the minimum set of measures necessary to reliably achieve radon reductions without impairing structural integrity, capability to control other indoor air pollutants, occupant comfort, or energy efficiency. Though it encourages measures that enhance the linkages among durability, indoor air quality, and comfort, it does not require them unless they are part of the minimum requirements necessary for radon control. As a result, the potential for optimizing indoor air quality and other factors is not impaired, but it is also not realized by the NRRS. Better control of radon is possible, but it requires broader dispersion of already available information, further development of technical support, supportive changes in other building codes, and the different emphasis of a whole-systems approach. The NRRS provides a useful interim step toward the larger goal of a more systemic approach