Retesting policy, and who runs the test
Post-installation measurement is where mitigation stops being a claim and starts being evidence. It is also the single most common gap in mitigation contracts, and the gap that generates the disputes.
Homeowners arriving through this platform have been taught to ask five specific questions before signing. A contractor whose contract already answers them has removed the entire category of argument.
When the confirmation test happens
Too early and the system has not stabilised; too late and the homeowner has paid an invoice against an unverified job. Published mitigation guidance describes post-installation measurement as part of the process, and homeowners are told to expect a stated window rather than an eventual intention.
A window in the contract also protects the contractor, because it defines when the obligation is discharged. An open commitment is one a homeowner can invoke at any point in the future.
Who performs it
Installer-run, independent, or homeowner-run under instruction are all defensible, and we tell homeowners so. What we also tell them is that an independent measurement carries more weight in a future transaction, because the party with an interest in the result did not collect it.
Contractors who offer the homeowner the choice, and explain that trade-off honestly, come out of our content well. It reads as confidence.
- Installer-run: fastest, cheapest, weakest as evidence in a dispute.
- Independent: costs more, strongest in a transaction, hardest to challenge.
- Homeowner-run under written instruction: adequate, provided the conditions are documented.
Who pays
Included in the price, billed separately, or the homeowner problem — all three exist in the market. We take no position on which is correct and a strong position on it being written down before the work starts.
The failure case is a homeowner who believed verification was included discovering an invoice for it. That is a small amount of money and a large amount of goodwill.
What result satisfies the job
A number, in writing. Below the action level is the usual formulation, and a contractor may reasonably decline to guarantee a specific lower figure without diagnostics — we tell homeowners that declining to promise a number is honest rather than evasive.
What cannot survive is silence. A contract with no stated success criterion has no definition of completion, and both parties will supply their own later.
What happens if it does not pass
This is the clause people leave out, and its absence is the most common reason a mitigated house fails to close on schedule. The clause needs to say what the contractor will do — additional suction points, sealing, a different fan — at whose cost, and within what period.
Homeowners are taught to treat a contract without this clause as incomplete. A contractor who includes it is describing a job they expect to stand behind, which is the impression the whole proposal is trying to create.
Retesting policy, and who runs the test: contractor questions
We always retest and it is included. Do we still need it in writing?
Yes, and it costs you nothing. An included deliverable that is not written down is a deliverable the homeowner cannot rely on, and writing it down converts a practice into a differentiator.
Can we refuse to guarantee a specific final figure?
Yes, and we tell homeowners that refusing is the honest answer without diagnostics. State what you will do if the confirmation test exceeds the action level instead — that is the commitment that matters.
What if the homeowner invalidates the confirmation test?
A conditions clause handles it: the test is run under closed-building conditions and a test run outside them does not satisfy the criterion. Homeowners find this reasonable when it is explained before rather than after.
How long should the remedy period be?
We publish no standard period because we have observed none. State something specific. A defined period both sides agreed to beats a reasonable-time formulation neither can enforce.
More for contractors
- Contract comparison — Five contract terms homeowners are told to read before signing.
- Warranty matrix — Equipment, workmanship, outcome — three instruments homeowners routinely conflate.
- What "lifetime" can honestly mean — The word is not the problem. The four unanswered questions behind it are.
- Permit expectations — A local question, not a state one — and the scope should say who handles it.
State requirements
Credentialing and disclosure rules differ by state, and each state page states the credential we verify before routing anything to you.
When, who, who pays, what passes, what if it does not. Five lines in a contract, and almost every post-installation dispute we hear about traces back to one of them being absent.
Sources
- U.S. EPA — Radon
- U.S. EPA — Consumer’s Guide to Radon Reduction
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