Why you should test your house for radon
Radon is in the air. Is it in your home? The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is encouraging the public to get testing kits to test for radon, which is a radioactive gas that comes from uranium found in the ground.
“You can either hang it (a testing kit) on a wall or leave it on a table,” said Dr. Colby Adams, environmental health director for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. “You leave it there for a few days and then you put it back in an envelope and mail it off to the lab and they’ll give you the results.”
The Environmental Protection Agency says radon levels above four picocuries per liter of air are dangerous. High levels have been seen in all 44 Idaho counties. According to the Dept. of Health and Welfare, 45 percent of Blackfoot homes tested had unsafe levels. Fifty-nine percent of Challis homes also had unsafe levels. Forty-three percent for Idaho Falls, 53 percent for Pocatello and 54 percent for both Rexburg and Salmon. If high levels are found in your home, there is a way to get rid of it through a mitigation company.
“Essentially, they use things like PVC pipe and sand to pull a very low volume of air out from underneath your basement slab,” Adams said. “And essentially what that does is it keeps the radon from going into your house and sucks it outside and then you exhaust that gas outside.”
Radon is difficult to detect without testing and can lead to illnesses in the future. The EPA estimates that radon causes 21,000 deaths in the United States each year. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer behind smoking. Doing the simple test can save a life.
“It’s not something where you can say, ‘Oh, I have a headache, that means I’m being exposed to radon,'” Adams said. “It’s something you’re not going to notice. It’s just, you know, you can’t smell it, can’t taste it, can’t feel it. So you won’t have any symptoms from it until possibly it’s too late.”
To learn more about radon and order a testing kit, visit the Idaho radon website.
