The role of ventilation in controlling the dispersion of radon gas from a cellar in a domestic house.

In certain parts of the United Kingdom where radon gas seeps from the ground into the basement of domestic housing, normal methods of removing this gas by using under floor extract ventilation is not appropriate. In this situation the radon gas enters the basement through the side walls of the cellar and hence into the house. Using mechanical ventilation to either pressurise or de-pressurise the cellar may be an appropriate solution to this problem, however before installing such a system in a house a ventilation strategy must be established. This paper sets out a ventilation strategy for minimising the ingress of radon into a domestic house, which has been established by simulating the air movements within a domestic house using Breeze Version 6 for a range of environmental conditions. The results of this analysis show that in winter when the emission of radon gas is most strong de-pressurisation of the basement can improve the ingress of the gas to the rest of the house.