Commercial Radon Mitigation in Burbank

The Lockheed Legacy

Burbank's industrial core was Lockheed's for most of the twentieth century, and the aircraft manufacturing that happened there left a solvent legacy in soil and groundwater that has been under federal cleanup for decades. Redevelopment of that land, including the retail and commercial product around the Empire Center area, has carried soil gas requirements as a matter of course.

If you own, lease, or are buying commercial property on that side of Burbank, the relevant question is rarely radon in isolation. It is whether the building needs a soil gas system that handles chlorinated solvents, whether one already exists, and whether the existing one has been maintained. We have inspected systems on redeveloped parcels there that had not had a fan checked in six years. System maintenance is the unglamorous half of this industry and the half that quietly fails.

Working Around Production

Soundstages and post-production facilities have a constraint no other building type has: absolute intolerance for noise and vibration during production, on a schedule that changes daily. Core drilling is out of the question anywhere near an active stage.

Our approach on studio and media property is to do all diagnostic work during production and reserve construction for hiatus windows, and to specify fans mounted on grade-level pads with isolation rather than on structure. A fan bolted to a wall shared with a mix stage will be discovered within a day, and rightly.

Media District Offices and Older Commercial

The office product along Olive and in the media district is mostly slab construction of various vintages, straightforward to test and straightforward to mitigate. Magnolia Park and the older commercial strips have a mix of slab and raised-foundation buildings, which is worth knowing before anyone quotes you, because the two are entirely different jobs.

Radon readings across flat Burbank are typically low, consistent with the valley floor generally. The California Department of Public Health has attributed the elevated San Fernando Valley readings to the marine sedimentary rock in the hills along the valley's southern edge, and Burbank mostly sits away from that.

Cost

Standard commercial testing $650 to $1,800. Slab mitigation $6,500 to $15,000. Studio and media property carries a scheduling premium of 20% to 40% because the work happens in narrow windows. Vapor intrusion systems on former industrial parcels run higher and carry annual monitoring obligations.

Start Here

Own or manage industrial or redeveloped property on the west side of Burbank? Ask us to look at whatever soil gas system already exists before you assume it works. For studio and office property, testing is quick and quiet and rarely turns up anything.

Related: vapor intrusion mitigation and industrial systems.

Burbank Questions

Is radon high in Burbank?

Generally no. Burbank sits on the valley floor away from the hillside geology that produces the elevated readings recorded in the southern San Fernando Valley zip codes, and our Burbank results are typically low.

Can you work around an active production schedule?

Yes, and it is most of what we plan for on studio property. Diagnostics happen during production; core drilling and construction are reserved for hiatus. Fans go on isolated grade-level pads rather than on structure so nothing transmits into a stage or a mix room.

We bought a building on a former industrial parcel. What should we check?

Whether a soil gas or vapor mitigation system already exists, whether it is operating, and when it was last verified. Redeveloped parcels in Burbank frequently have systems installed as a condition of development, and those systems are often unmaintained by the time a second or third owner takes over.