All too often, our health can be affect by things we can’t see — or even smell. Many of us have heard of dramatic cases in which people are killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. But there’s another danger that many of us aren’t even aware of, and it’s potentially much more common. It’s radon, a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas. Radon, as its name suggests, is radioactive. Therefore, exposure to radon can have a lot of long-term side effects that can seriously harm people’s bodies. But the issue is that radon is so difficult for the average person to detect that you could have been exposed to it for years before you knew the difference. Radon is known to affect residential areas; therefore, it’s important that if you have any reason to be worried about radon issues, you should consult with a local radon testing service. Many radon testing contractors can not only alert you to the presence of radon in your home — they can also help mitigate it. Radon gas testing is not something you should put off, and it needs to be taken seriously. Below, we’ll explore the risks of radon exposure, as well as how your home can be tested for it, and what can be done if radon exists within your residence.
What Are The Effects Of Radon?
Radon isn’t necessarily a substance that has immediate effects; you probably won’t breathe in radon and collapse immediately. But its long-term effects can be deadly. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Surgeon General’s Office, about 20,000 cancer deaths are caused each year by radon. Local radon testing has, in the past, revealed that areas with higher levels of radon are more prone to cancer cases. In fact, the Surgeon General indicated that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States today. If we lower radon levels in our homes, we could reduce the number of lung cancer deaths by two to 4% — that’s 5,000 people whose lives would be spared. Of course, while radon is certainly a danger to residential communities, it can also be found in the workplace. Radon is so risky that, should a person have lung cancer without prior smoking habits or other factors, radon is often pointed to as the culprit. But it’s one thing to simply know that radon is dangerous — what can you do to test for it?
How Does Radon Testing Work?
Most of your local radon testing companies will probably offer several different options when it comes to testing the radon levels in your home. There are short-term radon detectors, and long-term detectors. Depending on the device, short-term radon detectors will measure radon levels for 2 to 90 days. While these devices can be convenient, it might be safer to measure radon levels for a more extended period of time in some cases. Long-term radon detectors measure radon levels for over 90 days, often producing more accurate results, as you can imagine. Local radon testing can be a fairly lengthy process, depending on your specific circumstances — and in truth, some people don’t choose long-term detectors simply because they want to know their home’s radon levels as quickly as possible. With that being said, once you know the levels of radon in your home, you have to get even more active. It’s not enough to test for it — you’ll want to mitigate it as well.
How Does Radon Mitigation And Abatement Work?
Often, when a home’s radon levels are higher than they should be, they’re very high indeed. This means that you need to act quickly. Not all mitigation strategies for radon are drastic. In fact, some are quite passive. Passive systems have been shown to reduce radon levels by more than 50%. Upon adding radon ventilation fans, you’ll often find that the radon levels are lowered even more. High radon levels don’t meant that you have to leave your home; they just mean that you need to be proactive.