Can anyone tell me about radon mitigation?

[Okapi]

We are trying to buy a house and had a radon test done. It came back with a level of 10  (should be under 4). I've done some internet research (waiting to hear back from a professional radon contractor), and it sounds to me like it's not too expensive (on the high side should be under 2K) and is fairly reliable. But DH says he's looking into it, and he's seeing costs of over 10K, and that it still won't necessarily be safe. What is with the discrepancy? When he gets home we can look together and see what we find, but we are on a short timeline here (need to decide in 2 days if we want to keep going or walk away), and since it's Friday, if I need to line up someone to come do an estimate, I'll probably have to do it before he gets home. Has anyone had experience with this? Can anyone point me towards odds of the mitigation failing? Why are we finding such complete opposite information?? (OK, I don't really expect anyone to be able that last one  ). Help!

[chel]

I've had a radon mitigation system added to two homes I've bought. It's something the seller is always expected to fix. Especially after testing, they would have to disclose it the the next buyer. Always been around 2k for us.

I've never had to deal with problems, and was told by the installer, that they truly rarely fail. It's basically a fan that sucks up air, so not a lot of parts. If the fan stops blowing it's time for a new fan. But not much else that can go wrong.

Speaking of fans, it's really nice to have a system in as it will help with moisture in the basement.

The only failure my installer dealt with was with an older lady that reported the problem because her basement smelled different.

Hope this wasn't too late

[Okapi]

Thank you for the information! We went ahead and decided to go through with the sale. Turns out DH's concern is the usual - not that he's found a lot of info that it doesn't work, but that if a procedure has 5 failures out of 100,000, one of those 5 will happen to him (to be fair, he's had that happen to him an awful lot). We decided we'll risk the odds, and just hope for the best. The level wasn't too high (and we still don't know how well the home owners followed the testing rules - keeping the house closed up, plus there was rain and major barometric pressure changes during the test, so it could definitely be off), so if by chance it doesn't work the first time and we have to confine ourselves to the top floor for a while as it gets sorted out (or go crash w/ our parents for a bit) it'll be worth it in the end.

Now back to being excited about our awesome new home!