Radon Mitigation in Mantorville, MN
Radon testing and mitigation in Mantorville.
Mantorville is one of the oldest cities in Minnesota, founded in 1854, and the entire twelve-block downtown has been on the National Register since 1974. A fair number of the homes here are nearly as old as the town, and the foundations underneath them are part of the architectural record.
A town built from its own rock
The Dodge County Courthouse, built in 1865, is the oldest working courthouse in Minnesota. It's faced in Mantorville limestone, which came out of quarries in town itself. The Hubbell House, the old brewery ruins on the bluff, and a lot of the original homes in the historic district share the same stone.
For homeowners, that history shows up in the basement. Stone walls and original timber framing are common in the older sections of town. Slabs that were poured decades after the foundation are common too, often with patches and additions stacked on top of each other across multiple owners.
The newer homes on the outskirts of Mantorville are a different conversation. Poured foundations, modern HVAC, and the passive radon prep that Minnesota has required since 2009. Both kinds of homes are in the same Zone 1 radon territory.
Mantorville at a glance
Radon work in a town where the historic core is older than most American cities, and the foundations reflect it.
- Housing
- A historic core with limestone and stone foundations dating to the 1850s and 1860s, plus a handful of newer homes on the edges of the city.
- Geology
- Limestone, the same rock that came out of the local Mantorville quarries and went into the Hubbell House, the Dodge County Courthouse, and dozens of buildings across the upper Midwest.
- Median radon (Mantorville)
- 6.4 pCi/L , above the EPA action level 30 tests/yr avg, MDH 2014–2023
- Dodge County ≥ 4 pCi/L
- 59.5% of tested homes Ranks #20 of 87 MN counties
- Distance from Rochester
- 14 miles west
- County
- Dodge
- Founded
- 1854
What the radon numbers actually say in Mantorville
Across the testing the Minnesota Department of Health, Radon Testing public dataset has on file for Mantorville (2014–2023), the median home reads 6.4 pCi/L. That is above the EPA action level of 4 pCi/L. The geometric mean comes in at 5.9 pCi/L. That is a log-scale average that tends to track better when the distribution has a long upper tail, which radon distributions always do.
Zoom out to Dodge County. 59.5% of tested homes in the county come back at or above 4 pCi/L. That ranks Dodge County #20 of 87 Minnesota counties for the share of homes above the action level. A separate 79.6% of tested homes are at or above 2 pCi/L, which is the threshold the Minnesota Department of Health uses when it recommends action.
About 30 Mantorville homes get tested every year on average, drawing from a stock of roughly 1,669 housing units. The number above is not a forecast for your specific home. Radon varies house to house even on the same street. The number is a reasonable starting line for the conversation, not a prediction. See the full data set for the by-county and by-tract picture.
Three steps. On your timeline.
Measure your radon level.
We start with a measurement of what is actually in the air your family breathes. You see the result we see, and we walk through what it means in plain language.
You see the picture first.
Once you have the result, we talk through what your home is dealing with. No scripts, no pressure. You decide what to do next on your own timeline.
A conversation about your home.
If you want to take action, we look at the basement together and talk through what a plan for your foundation could look like. Every home is its own conversation.
Other towns we cover.
Kasson
Kasson sits across the county line from Olmsted, but the ground underneath is the same and the EPA puts Dodge County in the same Zone 1 radon tier. For a homeowner here, the radon question doesn't change because of which county the property tax goes to.
Zumbrota
Zumbrota has the only original covered bridge left in Minnesota, a downtown that has been continuously occupied since the 1850s, and a real estate market shaped in part by Mayo Clinic commuters. The housing here covers a wider span than the population would suggest.
Chatfield
Chatfield straddles the line between Fillmore and Olmsted counties, with most of the city in Fillmore. The downtown core is one of the most intact small-town main streets in this part of Minnesota, and the housing around it covers eight decades of construction.
Find out your radon levels with a free radon test.
About 42% of tested Olmsted County homes come back above the EPA action level. The surrounding counties are higher. The first step is knowing where yours sits, and that is the part we do for free.