Radon gas is an odorless, tasteless and colorless gas that can seep into your home through cracks in the home's structure or be carried into your home in the water. It is a leading cause of lung cancer in America. It's important to test your home to be sure it doesn't have high levels of radon. Testing is easy and inexpensive, and resources are available from a number of national and local environmental and health agencies.
What Is Radon?
Radon is a radioactive gas produced by the breakdown of naturally occurring uranium in rocks found in the soil and water. Chronic exposure to elevated concentrations of radon can cause lung cancer. In fact, the Surgeon General now warns that chronic radon exposure is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States today.
How Does Radon Get into a Home?
There are many ways for radon to get into a home. It can seep in through cracks in the floor, in construction joints, or in the walls. It can also get in through gaps in suspended floors, gaps around piping or through cavities in walls. Radon may also be actively sucked into a house as a result of negative internal pressure created by a home's heating and ventilation system.
Where Does Negative Pressure Draw Radon into a Home?
Radon may be more likely to enter a home at places where negative pressure has been created, as this can create a vacuum, sucking external radon into the house. These places include the lower levels of the house, where a vacuum is created by heated air rising, particularly during the winter heating season; local vacuums created as air is sucked into wood stoves, furnaces and fireplaces; and local vacuums created by dryer, bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans as air is vented to the outside. The basement is particularly susceptible to radon entry, since it is the lowest level of the house, and thus susceptible to radon entry by way of the heating vacuum, and since it is the part of the house in greatest contact with radon-releasing soil.
Radon in the Water
In areas with high soil-radon concentration, radon can seep into groundwater feeding public aquifers, or into private wells, and can enter your house in the drinking water. Radon in drinking water can contribute to lung cancer if inhaled, for example, if it's released as a gas while showering or doing the dishes, or to stomach cancer if ingested. However, radon gas seeping into your house from the soil poses a greater risk than radon entering in your water.
How Can I Tell If Radon Is in My Home?
The only way to tell if your home has high concentrations of radon is to test for it. Radon test kits are relatively inexpensive and easy to use. You can contact the Environmental Protection Agency or your state department of health for further resources on testing for or mitigating high levels of radon in your home. See the resources section of this article for further information.
