About us
An independent tester, on purpose.
Birmingham Radon measures radon. That's the whole business. We don't install radon-fix systems, we don't sell fans or sealants, and we don't have a second line item that gets more profitable when a test comes back high. The number on your report is just the number the lab read — nothing else rides on it.
Why testing only?
The conflict of interest we removed
Most radon tests in Birmingham are run by companies that also sell radon fixes. That's not an accusation — it's just a built-in conflict of interest, and it's worth saying so plainly. When the same company that measures the problem also profits from fixing it, the temptation to round a borderline number up is baked into the business model, whether anyone means for it to be or not.
We don't have that conflict, because we don't have that second business. A test with us costs the same whether the reading comes back at 0.4 or 8.0 pCi/L. There's no upsell waiting on the other side of a high number. Our price is flat on purpose. Nothing we sell later depends on what the test said, so the number has no reason to land anywhere in particular — it's just the number.
That matters most in the two situations where an inflated reading does real damage: a real estate deal where a bad number can kill a closing, and a homeowner just testing their own house where a borderline number can trigger an unnecessary quote for a radon fix. In both cases, a tester with nothing riding on the outcome takes the argument off the table before anyone starts it. We never diagnose a problem we'd then turn around and get paid to fix.
Our equipment
The equipment we use, and why
Every test runs on a sealed, professional monitor — a small continuous-reading air-quality device, not a mail-off charcoal canister. It logs a radon reading every hour of the test, so short-term spikes (a door left open, an HVAC cycle) show up in the graph instead of getting hidden in a single averaged number.
Alongside the radon reading, the monitor records temperature, humidity, and air pressure hour by hour, plus a flag if the unit gets moved. Window propped open, fan turned on, monitor picked up and set somewhere else — the data shows it. That record is what turns a two-day measurement into something a buyer, seller, and agent can all look at without arguing about it.
The monitor itself doesn't produce your final report. The recorded data goes to an independent lab for the reading, so whoever ran your test is never whoever graded it. That separation is on purpose — it's the whole reason the phrase "we never grade our own tests" is on this site.
How we test
The 48-hour standard
Every test follows ANSI/AARST — the national testing standard: a minimum 48-hour reading under closed-house conditions (windows and outside doors kept shut), with the monitor placed at the right height and location on the lowest floor you actually live on. This is the same standard real estate transactions and building professionals expect — no shortcut version.
Closed-house conditions start 12 hours before the monitor is armed and hold through the full two days. Windows and outside doors stay closed except for normal coming and going; HVAC runs on its regular thermostat. What the standard rules out is deliberate ventilation — propped-open windows, a whole-house fan, a fireplace damper left open when it normally wouldn't be.
Placement matters too. The monitor goes on the lowest floor you use as living space, at least 20 inches off the floor, away from outside walls, windows, HVAC vents, and steamy or breezy rooms. Once it's placed, it stays put for the full test. All of that is the reason a 48-hour continuous reading actually means something a five-minute grab sample doesn't.
How your test is handled
Drop-off, pickup, independent lab, report
The chain of custody — the paper trail of who handled the monitor and when — is short on purpose. We deliver a sealed, calibrated monitor to your home and arm it against a written record: address, room, height, start time. It runs the full 48 hours untouched. At pickup, we retrieve the unit and pull the hourly data, still sealed. The data uploads to an independent lab whose only relationship with us is reading what the monitor recorded.
The lab returns a written report — usually about an hour after pickup — with the hour-by-hour graph, the two-day average measured against 4.0 pCi/L (the level where the EPA says to fix your home), any tamper flags, and the environmental log. That report goes to whoever the client asks for: buyer, seller, agent, closing attorney, or all four. We never grade our own tests. That's the whole point.
Nights and weekends
Nights, weekends, and a direct line
Radon tests don't wait for business hours, and neither do we. We schedule nights and weekends to fit around closing timelines and work schedules. There's no call center and no dispatch queue — when you call (205) 000-0000, you get the person who runs your test, every time.
Where we are with certification
Where we are, honestly
We're currently working through NRPP (National Radon Proficiency Program) measurement-professional certification. We won't claim to be "certified" before that credential exists, and we'll update this page the day it does. In the meantime, every test still runs the full 48 hours under the national standard (ANSI/AARST), on sealed professional monitors, read by an independent lab — the same standard the certification exists to enforce.
Who we are
New company. Built to do one job right.
Birmingham Radon is a new company. We're not going to invent a history we don't have or pad a review count that doesn't exist. What we can tell you is what we built this service around: one job — a 24-to-48-hour test and an honest, lab-read number — done right, every time.
The reason to start a company like this in Birmingham right now is that every other option has a conflict. Home inspectors treat radon as a $150 add-on to a $500 inspection. Radon-fix contractors test as a way to land the fan install. Nobody was set up to run the test as the whole product — on its own equipment, on its own timeline, read somewhere else. We are.
Where we test
Where we test
We're based in Leeds, in eastern Jefferson County, and we test all through Jefferson County, Shelby County, St. Clair County. Leeds sits right where Jefferson, St. Clair, and Shelby counties meet, which is why the drive to a Hoover slab home, a Mountain Brook basement, a Trussville new-build, or a Pell City lake house is all inside an hour on a normal day. That geography is a big part of why the 48-hour on-site guarantee is realistic and not a marketing line.
Cities we cover include Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Homewood, Trussville, Leeds, Alabaster, Pelham, Helena, Chelsea, and Moody — plus the smaller towns and unincorporated areas between them. If you're not sure whether we cover a specific address, (205) 000-0000 is the fastest way to get a yes-or-no in 30 seconds.
Nights and weekends are scheduled on the same terms as weekdays. There's no after-hours surcharge and no cut-rate service level. If a contingency ends on a Tuesday and the earliest a buyer can let us in is a Saturday afternoon, the Saturday afternoon booking is the one we take.