Radon Gas Home Safety Tips

Radon gas home safety tips. If radon gas is in your home, you want to be aware of it and eradicate it as soon as possible for your family's health and safety.

Typically, this odorless, colorless gas enters homes through the soil, cracks in the foundation, or gaps in your home's flooring. Why is detecting and eradicating radon important?

Well, for starters, radon exposure and cancer deaths go hand in hand. Trapped inside your home, radon gas can build to dangerous levels. 

Radon gas home safety tips. Here's how to determine whether or not radon gas is present in your home and what to do about this radioactive gas.

Radon Gas Home Safety Tips For This Environmental Threat 

You can't smell it or see it, but it can lead to lung cancer. It comes from the natural breakdown of uranium in soil, rock, and water and can get into your house through cracks in floors and walls and gaps made by plumbing pipes and electrical wiring. 

Approximately one in 15 homes have high levels of radon. You can check for radon with a home test kit or ask a professional. Trapped inside, it can build to dangerous levels.

Check Your Home's Radon Exposure with a Test Kit

A radon test kit (available online and at hardware stores) can help you check whether your home's radon levels are elevated.

An inexpensive test kit can put your mind at ease or alert you to radon levels that warrant professional eradication. Depending on the device, these short-term tests remain in your home for anywhere from 2 to 90 days.

The most common short-term radon tests are charcoal canisters, alpha track, electric ion chambers, continuous monitors, and charcoal liquid scintillation detectors.

If testing shows your result is 4 pCi/L or higher radon levels, take a follow-up test to be sure. 

You can follow up with either a long-term or a second short-term test. Take a long-term test to understand your year-round average radon exposure level better. If you need results quickly, take a second short-term test.

If your first short-term test result is more than twice EPA's 4 pCi/L radon levels, you should take a second short-term test immediately.

From there, once you've confirmed you have a radon exposure problem, you can take steps toward remediation.

There are several proven methods for reducing radon levels in your home, but the one primarily used is a vent pipe system and fan. This system pulls radon from beneath the house and vents it to the outside. 

This system, known as a soil suction radon reduction system, does not require significant changes to your home. Sealing foundation cracks and other openings makes this system more effective and cost-efficient.

Check Your Water Supply for Radon

If there is radon in your water supply, it poses an inhalation risk and an ingestion risk.

However, most of the risk from radon in water comes from gas released into the air when water is used for showering and other household purposes.

If you've tested the air in your home and found a radon problem, hire a certified radon professional to prevent infiltration.