Radon Detection

  
 
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Exposure to radon in the home is responsible for an estimated 20,000 lung cancer deaths each year. That's because when you breathe air containing radon, you can get lung cancer. In fact, the Surgeon General has warned that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States today. Only smoking causes more lung cancer deaths. You can't see radon. And you can't smell it or taste it. But it may be a problem in your home.

Radon is a cancer causing radioactive gas. Radon comes from the natural (radioactive) breakdown of uranium in soil, rock and water and gets into the air you breathe. Radon is a gaseous highly radioactive element discovered by English physicist Ernest Rutherford in 1899. The discovery is also credited to German physicist Friedrich Ernst Dorn in 1900. More specifically, Rutherford discovered radon's alpha radiation and Dorn discovered that radium was releasing a gas.

Radon can be found all over the U.S. It can get into any type of building, homes, offices, and schools, and result in a high indoor radon level. But you and your family are most likely to get your greatest exposure at home, where you spend most of your time. The primary routes of potential human exposure to radon are inhalation and ingestion. Radon in the ground, groundwater, or building materials enters working and living spaces and disintegrates into its decay products. Although high concentrations of radon in groundwater may contribute to radon exposure through ingestion, the inhalation of radon released from water is usually more important.

Radon is a health hazard with a simple solution. Testing is the only way to know if you and your family are at risk from radon. The EPA and the Surgeon General recommend testing all homes below the third floor for radon. The EPA also recommends testing in schools. Testing is the only way to know your home's radon levels. There are no immediate symptoms that will alert you to the presence of radon. It typically takes years of exposure before any problems surface.

If your home has high concentrations of radon there are ways to reduce it to acceptable levels. Most radon problems can be fixed by a do-it-yourselfer for less than $500.  But how much radon is too much? A safe level of radon gas is no radon gas. Radon gas is a carcinogen which causes lung cancer. The US EPA has put it plainly, stating, "Any radon exposure has some risk of causing lung cancer. The lower the radon level in your home, the lower your family's risk of lung cancer." The average person receives a higher dose of radiation from the radon levels in their home than from their combined exposure to all other radiation sources, natural or man-made.

Radon Act 51 passed by Congress set the natural outdoor level of radon gas (0.4 pCi/L) as the target radon level for indoor radon levels. Unfortunately two-thirds of all homes exceed this level. The US EPA was tasked with setting practical guidelines and recommendations for the nation. To this end, the US EPA has set an action level of 4 pCi/L. At or above this level of radon, the EPA recommends you take corrective measures to reduce your exposure to radon gas. This does not imply that a level below 4.0 pCi/L is considered acceptable, as stated in the BEIR VI study. It is estimated that a reduction of radon levels to below 2 pCi/L nationwide would likely reduce the yearly lung cancer deaths attributed to radon by 50%. However, even with an action level of 2.0 pCi/L, the cancer risk presented by radon gas is still hundreds of times greater than the risks allowed for carcinogens in our food and water.



There are relatively simple tests for radon gas, but these tests are not commonly done, even in areas of known systematic hazards. Radon test kits are commercially available. The short-term radon test kits used for screening purposes are inexpensive, in many cases free. The kit includes a collector that the user hangs in the lowest livable floor of the house for 2 to 7 days. The user then sends the collector to a laboratory for analysis. Long term kits, taking collections for up to one year, are also available. An open-land test kit can test radon emissions from the land before construction begins.

Radon levels in indoor air can be lowered in a number of ways, from sub-slab depressurization to increasing the ventilation rate of the building. The four principal ways of reducing the amount of radon accumulating in a house are:

  • Sub-slab depressurization (soil suction) by increasing under-floor ventilation;
  • Improving the ventilation of the house and avoiding the transport of radon from the basement into living rooms;
  • Installing a radon sump system in the basement;
  • Installing a positive pressurization or positive supply ventilation system.

 

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