Radon Testing for Senior Living and Assisted Living Facilities

1. Why senior living facilities test for radon

Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, and the risk comes from long-term exposure. That makes senior living an especially relevant setting. Residents of assisted living, skilled nursing, and memory care communities spend the large majority of their time indoors, frequently in the same building for years, and many have existing health conditions that make any added respiratory burden more serious.

For an operator or owner, that combination of long occupancy and a vulnerable population is the core reason to test. Radon is colorless and odorless, so the only way to know whether a facility has elevated levels is to measure them. Testing turns an invisible question into a documented answer, which protects residents and gives ownership a defensible record of due diligence.

2. HUD Section 232 and the required radon report

HUD's Section 232 program insures loans for residential care facilities, which includes assisted living, skilled nursing, and memory care. Because these buildings house a vulnerable population, the radon requirement is explicit: a radon report is required for a Section 232 mortgage insurance application unless a specific exception in the program handbook applies.

HUD also specifies who prepares that report. HUD requires it to be signed by a radon measurement professional experienced under a recognized program such as AARST or NRSB, working to ANSI/AARST measurement protocols, with state certification where a state requires it. These are HUD's requirements for the report, not a credential claimed by any single contractor, so when you select a provider the right question is whether the testing will be performed and signed in a way that meets the HUD standard. For owners, this is the clearest radon requirement in the HUD system, and it is worth scheduling early so it does not delay closing.

3. Acquisition, refinance, and the loan timeline

For most facilities, the practical trigger for radon testing is a transaction. A purchase, a refinance, or a new HUD-insured loan brings the environmental review into play, and the radon report becomes part of due diligence. If you are buying or refinancing a care facility with HUD financing, treat radon testing as a scheduled line item in the deal, not a surprise near closing.

Timing matters because radon testing is sequential. Short-term measurement runs over a set period, then results go to a lab, then a written report is produced, and if any area reads high, mitigation and a confirmatory retest follow. Each step takes time. Building that sequence into the loan timeline early keeps a high reading from turning into a closing delay. Because HUD program requirements and sampling specifics are updated periodically, confirm the exact requirement that applies to your loan with your lender before you order testing.

4. Testing an occupied care facility with minimal disruption

A common worry among operators is that testing will disrupt residents or require relocation. It does not. Radon testing places small, quiet measurement devices in selected rooms and common areas for a set period. Residents continue their normal routines, and staff are simply asked not to move or cover the devices while the measurement runs.

The work is coordinated with facility leadership so device placement, retrieval, and any later mitigation fit around meal service, therapy schedules, and resident activity. When mitigation is needed in an occupied building, suction points and riser routing are chosen to limit noise and keep walkways clear, and residents and families are notified as part of the process. The goal is a complete, defensible result with the lightest possible footprint on daily life inside the facility.

5. Which areas carry the most risk

Radon enters from the soil beneath a building, so the spaces in direct contact with the ground carry the highest risk. In a senior living facility, that means ground-contact resident rooms, slab-on-grade wings, and any below-grade areas. The ground-floor common areas where residents spend long stretches of the day are equally important: dining rooms, activity and therapy rooms, lounges, and offices.

Upper floors are not automatically safe. Elevator shafts, stairwells, and utility chases create vertical pathways that let soil gas move upward through a building. A sound testing plan reflects this by prioritizing ground-contact rooms and high- occupancy common areas while still sampling enough of the building to give a representative picture. The point is to measure where residents actually spend their time, not just where it is convenient to place a device.

6. The 4.0 pCi/L action level, mitigation, and retesting

The action level is 4.0 pCi/L, the same threshold used across most US radon programs. Any area that tests at or above 4.0 pCi/L should be mitigated, and the work is not finished until post-mitigation testing confirms the area reads below 4.0 pCi/L. That mitigate-then-retest sequence is what makes a result defensible: it documents both the problem and the verified fix.

It is worth being precise about what the action level means. It is the level at which action is required, not a clean line between safe and dangerous. Radon risk is continuous, so an area reading just under 4.0 pCi/L still carries some risk. Given the long occupancy in a care facility, many owners choose to mitigate below the action level when the cost is modest. Mitigation in a larger building usually uses a sub-slab depressurization system sized for the structure, and the final report records the levels found, the system installed, and the confirming post-mitigation results.

7. Liability and resident safety

Beyond loan requirements, radon is a resident-safety and liability question. An operator that has tested, documented results, and mitigated where needed can show a clear record of acting responsibly toward residents and families. An operator that has never tested cannot say what its levels are, which is a weaker position if the question is ever raised.

Testing also fits naturally alongside the other due-diligence work owners already do on a care facility. If you are evaluating a commercial radon program more broadly, our commercial radon testing guide and our overview of multifamily radon testing cover how testing and mitigation work across larger occupied buildings.

8. Radon risk in metro Atlanta

Georgia does not have a state radon testing law, which leads some owners to assume radon is not a local concern. The data says otherwise. On the EPA Map of Radon Zones, four metro Atlanta counties, Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett, are Zone 1, the highest category, meaning a predicted indoor average at or above 4.0 pCi/L. Several surrounding north Georgia counties also carry elevated designations driven by the region's granite and uranium-bearing bedrock.

For a senior living facility in metro Atlanta, the combination of federal testing requirements under Section 232 and genuinely elevated regional radon means high results are common enough to plan for. Building the testing timeline into your loan process, rather than reacting to it, keeps a high reading from turning into a closing delay and keeps residents protected in the meantime.

9. Frequently asked questions