FAQs
How long does a radon fan last?
Manufacturers rate them for several years of uninterrupted running and many exceed that comfortably. Replacement is a short service call rather than a new system, since the pipe, the suction point and the sealing all stay exactly as they are.
Typical Radon Fan Lifespan
These are continuously rated motors built for exactly this duty, and the published expectation runs to several years with plenty of units going considerably longer. Because they never start and stop, they avoid the wear that shortens the life of intermittent motors, which is part of why the numbers are as good as they are.
What shortens it is environment rather than hours. A fan mounted where water can pool in the housing, or one fighting a badly designed system that never lets it reach its intended operating point, will not see the same life as one installed properly on a system sized for it.
Signs a Radon Fan Has Failed
This is the part worth knowing in advance, because failure is not obvious. A stopped fan is silent, and a house does not feel different. The indicator is the gauge on the pipe: a U-tube manometer holds the two fluid columns at different heights while the system is pulling, and they settle level when it is not. Some installations use a dial or an alarm instead, which is worth asking for if the pipe is somewhere nobody walks past.
Glancing at it occasionally is the entire maintenance routine for a radon system. Make it part of something already habitual, such as changing the furnace filter, and it costs nothing to remember.
What replacement involves
Far less than the original installation. The suction point, the pipe run, the sealing and the electrical circuit are all still in place and still correct; the job is disconnecting the old unit and fitting a new one at the same couplings. It is measured in an hour or two, not a day.
Two things are worth doing at the same visit. Check whether the failed unit is still inside its manufacturer warranty, since that materially changes the cost. And run a fresh measurement afterwards rather than assuming, because a new fan is exactly the kind of change that deserves a number confirming the house is back where it should be.
Still deciding what to do about a reading? The testing page covers how a measurement is taken, and what a system costs breaks the ranges down by method. If you got here from a map or a ZIP-code lookup, what Ohio's radon maps show explains what those averages are actually measuring.
Related questions
- Is a radon mitigation system under warranty, and for how long?Three separate things carry cover and they expire on different schedules: the fan under its manufacturer's warranty, the installation workmanship under the contractor's, and the result itself under whatever performance commitment was written into the quote. Get all three in writing before work starts.Read the answer
- How loud is a radon fan?Correctly sized and mounted outside the living space, it is close to inaudible indoors. What people notice is a faint rush of moving air near the pipe rather than the motor. Noise complaints almost always trace back to an oversized fan or a mounting decision, not to the technology.Read the answer
- Will a radon mitigation system increase my electric bill?Barely. The fan draws roughly what a household light bulb does and runs without stopping, which for most homes works out to a few dollars a month. The sealing done during installation typically offsets part of that by closing air leaks that were already there.Read the answer
- Does a radon mitigation system hurt resale value?The experience runs the other way. An untested house is an open question a buyer has to price in; a house with a system and a low confirming result on file has already answered it. Most buyers read it the way they read a newer roof.Read the answer
Get the question answered about your own house
Describe the foundation and what the reading was, and we'll tell you what it means before anything gets scheduled.