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Have You Ever Wondered About...
What is Radon? Radon is a radioactive gas. Radon is estimated to cause many thousands of deaths each year. 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. If you smoke and your home has high radon levels, your risk of lung cancer is especially high. You can’t see, smell or taste radon. Radon comes from the natural, radioactive breakdown of uranium in soil, rock, and water and gets into the air you breathe. Being a gas, radon easily can find its way out of rocks and soil, mix with other soil gases and enter homes and other buildings through cracks and openings in foundations. Some radon can also enter homes through drinking water. Radon can then enter the air after leaving the water during showering, cooking, and other water use activities. When outdoors, radon mixes with fresh air and is usually diluted to low levels. However, once inside an enclosed building, such as a home or school, radon can build up to high levels. The amount of radon indoors depends on how easily the radon can travel through the soil, how the building is constructed, and the amount of radon in the soil underneath the building.
Radon can be found all over the United States, in old and new homes, and in homes with and without basements. Radon levels are generally highest in basements and ground floor rooms that are in contact with soil. Factors such as design, construction, and ventilation of the home can affect how radon in drawn indoors. In 1985 and 1986, state and local health officials screened 1,018 homes for radon. Approximately one-third of the homes had high levels of radon. In 1989 and 1990, Idaho and EPA conducted a joint survey intended to be more representative of the entire state. A two-day test was used by 1,142 homeowners. The results, received in January 1992, indicated that more than 20 percent of the homes in Idaho had high levels of radon. Since 1990, the state radon project has been tracking the number of tests reported in Idaho. As of August 2005, 6,668 homes have reported results to the project with 37% of the homes testing high for radon. It is almost impossible to predict which homes may have high radon levels. Homes built side by side, on the same soil or rock, or with similar designs, can have very different radon levels. Therefore, it is recommended that all homes be tested.
Radon testing -
What do I do about high radon levels? If after testing you discover you have high radon levels in your home, EPA recommends that you have a qualified contractor fix your home. However, if you want to do the work yourself, please call the Radon Hotline number to obtain a technical assistance document. If you are building a new home, you should consider installing radon-resistant construction features. It is more cost effective to include these features while building a home, rather than fixing an existing home.
No level of radon is considered absolutely safe, radon levels in a home should be reduced as much as possible. The amount of radon in the air is measured in picoCuries per Liter of air, or pCi/L. The EPA recommends fixing your home if the results of one long-term test or the average of two short-term tests taken in the lowest lived-in area of the home show radon levels of 4 pCi/L or higher. The higher the radon level, the more quickly you should have your home fixed. For more information about radon, go to the United States Environmental Protection Agency radon website at: www.epa.gov/iaq/radon/pubs . For more information about the Idaho Radon Program, contact the Idaho Radon Hotline
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