To Radon or to Radon't?

Radon comes from the natural breakdown of uranium found it the soil, and is an odorless, colorless, radioactive gas. Radon is everywhere, but as it disperses into the air it doesn’t cause much of a risk – only when it builds up indoors causing increased levels and prolonged exposure. It has been found worldwide in homes, entering through cracks and holes in the foundations.

Long term exposure to elevated levels of radon gas increases the chance of developing lung cancer and significant health risks. An estimated 21,000 deaths per year can be attributed to radon exposure – second only to smoking. The Environmental Protection Agency has set 4 pCi/L (picoCuries of radon per liter of air) as the lowest level of radon safe for a living area.

It’s always a good idea to test your home for radon, homes next to each other can have different levels so you can’t rely on other residences tests for your family’s safety.

Either by a simple test you can do yourself at home or by a Radon Testing professional, the air is tested over a period of hours and you will receive the results of your homes radon level. The appropriate action for elevated levels is to have a radon mitigation system installed in your home. This will reduce or eliminate the presence and exposure to the radon gas.

The process of mitigation is to fully encapsulate the crawlspace to remove the chance of radon from reaching the living areas of the home. Then a TripleSafe sump liner is installed so that a 4” extraction pipe can exit from the ground through an external fan and out of the discharge line placed at the eave level, more than 4 feet from a door or window. The process is the same for a basement except instead of a CleanSpace encapsulation we will ensure that all cracks are sealed.

Within 3 days we will initiate a post installation test to check that the levels have lowered to below the acceptable level of picoCuries.