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When making plans for your home, it can be easy to focus on remodeling projects, furniture, colors and paint samples, and maximizing space while forgetting about the importance of the air you breathe. Making sure your air quality is high and that the air your family is most exposed to is safe to breathe should be high on your priority list, since your health could be at stake every time you enter your home. Stay up-to-date on your radon testing in Maine by educating yourself about radon, its dangers, and how to keep your home safe from its effects. What is Radon? Radon is a natural gas that occurs naturally in small amounts. It has no color or odor, and its radioactive properties make it unsafe in larger quantities. It is generally found in bedrock, and gets released through contaminated water. It can be a danger from both water and air sources. Although there is very little chance of suffering negative effects from radon exposure outdoors (since it is only minimally present), it can build up to unsafe levels in enclosed spaces (like homes and office buildings). Symptoms of breathing in too much radon often aren’t apparent at first, but high levels of radon can eventually cause lung cancer and other health problems. Test Your Home Fortunately, testing for radon has become a fairly simple process, and without high expense, you can have your home tested for this toxic substance. You can buy test kits to try yourself or you can have your home professionally tested. There are 2 common types of tests, short-term and long-term. Short-term test kits can take up to 90 days, while the long-term tests take longer than that. What Do the Results Mean? When performing these tests, keep in mind that the radon levels in your home are subject to change, so you shouldn’t simply get one set of results and conclude that this is the radon level in your home for good. Whether your numbers are high or normal, continuing to test the radon levels in your home over time is always a good idea. When reading the results of your testing, keep in mind that no level of radon exposure is always considered safe. However, a good number to keep in mind is 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) (or higher). This is the level that the US Environmental Protection Agency has deemed the range that should be immediately addressed. Long-term exposure to radon levels this high can be especially dangerous. What Can You Do About Radon? So what can be done about this health threat? First, if you do test for levels and find them at a 4 or higher, be sure to re-test your levels to confirm it wasn’t a false positive. Radon gas can be drawn out of your home using active sub-slab depressurization. This uses PVC pipes to draw the radon out and redirect it outdoors. Of course, the first thing you can do is try to prevent radon from entering your home in the first place. As it is generally produced underground in the soil and rock beneath your home, sealing cracks, openings around drains and pumps, and crawl spaces can keep the pressured gas from seeping into your home. How Worried Should You Be? Because people spend so much time indoors, and because the US EPA estimates that 1 out of every 15 homes has elevated radon levels, radon testing isn’t something you should ignore. The bright side is that, since radon testing in Maine is so simple, you can keep your eye on your radon levels and then return back to your everyday life without stressing about your family’s long-term health. If you are having radon-related air problems in your home, A & B Water Consultants is the right place to come radon air treatment. Radon testing Maine! Visit our page on http://www.fixyourwater.com/radon-air/ for more info!
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