Radon: The silent killer in your home

By : Radon Mitigation



Cigarettes in a home is easy to detect as it drifts with the air or leaves its odor in clothes or furniture. Its health toll is equally as obvious because the leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.

Less obvious and almost as deadly is radon, an odorless gas that causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. and the leading reason for lung cancer in non-smokers. It is a bigger concern during cold winters like the one we've just experienced when radon levels sky rocket in well-sealed homes.

The odorless gas is because natural introduction to uranium in soil and water and seeps into homes through drains and cracks within the foundation. While radon is natural in the air, levels could be unhealthy when it's trapped inside a house.

In the U.S. 1 in 15 homes have unsafe radon levels, based on the Epa website.

While the EPA website has a map of zones in the U.S. showing areas that may have higher radon levels, Janice Nolen, assistant vice president at the American Lung Association, said people cannot assume they do not have a radon problem.

"We've had cases where the house next store was fine but the next one over were built with a problem with radon," Nolen said. "Across the country in every single state there have been cases of houses with high radon levels."

Now a push for more radon awareness is coming from the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment, an affiliation of groups set on improving children's environmental health. Their bond hopes radon home testing becomes as fashionable as the fire alarm and carbon monoxide alarm precautions people take in their homes.

Erica Phipps, the group's executive director, said radon does not receive much public awareness, but it should.

"When you look at the lung cancer statistics and the role radon plays it's astounding," Phipps said.

Nolen said tests are as easy as going to a home improvement store and buying an at-home kit for between $10 and $20. The monitor remains on a low level shelf close to the floor for anywhere from 24 hours to a week and than sent off for the levels to be checked.

If radon levels are full of a home the EPA website includes a state-by-state help guide to finding contractors that deal with radon. The EPA also offers a handbook for reducing radon, with fixes varying from extraction pipes below the the place to find since the floor of crawl spaces with high density plastic and using fans to draw the radon out and vent it outside.

"This is a concern you can now have," Nolen said. "Radon levels can be fixed, it's just an issue of identifying the issue and getting it looked after."

The EPA lists the next ways that radon could possibly get into buildings:

• Cracks in solid floors and walls

• Construction joints

• Gaps in suspended floors

• Gaps around service pipes

• Cavities inside walls

•The water supply