Key Takeaways:
- Radon is an odorless, colorless, and tasteless gas. It's the second leading cause of lung cancer.
- To prepare your home for a radon test, keep windows and doors shut. Avoid using ceiling fans.
- If you have elevated levels of radon in your home, a radon mitigation system will be installed.
The only way to find out if your home has high radon levels, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer over time, is to get a radon test.
But what should you do to prepare your home for a radon test?
We'll take a look in the article below.
Table Of Contents
- What's Radon?
- How Does Radon Get Into Your Home?
- How Does Radon Testing Work?
- Preparing For Your Radon Test
- What Happens If I Have Elevated Levels Of Radon?
- Contact Your Local Radon Professional
What's Radon?
Radon gas is made when Uranium in the water, soil, and air breaks down.
Problems arise when radon gets trapped inside your home. High levels of radon in the air for a long time can cause lung cancer.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that about 21,000 Americans die yearly from lung cancer caused by radon exposure.
If your house has more than four picocuries per liter, you must work to reduce your radon concentrations.
How Does Radon Get Into Your Home?
Radon gas gets into a home from the soil beneath it. The gas can get in through cracks in concrete and holes in walls and floors.
The EPA says that any house in the country can have elevated radon levels, regardless of age or location.
It really depends on how your house and the levels of radon in the soil around it.
Your radon level may differ from your neighbor's, so it's important to test for radon no matter what.
People often find out they have radon poisoning too late, so the only way to know if your home is safe is to test it for radon.
How Does Radon Testing Work?
When it comes to testing for radon, you have three choices.
The safest thing to do is hire a professional home inspector to check out the house.
Radon Eliminator is more than happy to test your home for you, but if you'd rather do it yourself, you'll need a short-term or long-term Radon test.
- Short-term Radon Tests: The amount of radon in your home could change daily. A short-term Radon test takes place over a shorter time period than a long-term test. A short-term test takes anywhere from two to ninety days. This kind of test isn't as accurate as a long-term test, but they're best if you need a quick turnaround for real estate transactions.
- Long-term Radon Tests: Long-term radon tests last longer than 90 days. A long-term radon test kit will give you a much better idea of how much radon is in your home on average each year.
If you don't want to commit to a long-term test, do a short-term test first.
If the radon levels seem a little high, you should do a long-term test to find out for sure. You should do a long-term test if the level is above 1.3 pCi/L.
Preparing For Your Radon Test
People worried about the amount of radon in their homes often ask radon testing services how to get ready for a radon test, thinking that the process might be hard.
But getting the house ready for radon testing isn't hard at all.
Close the doors and windows of your home for up to 12 hours before the radon test.
You can come in and out of the house but try not to keep the door open for a long time. Heating and cooling systems can also work as usual, but you should set the temperature between 68 and 74 degrees.
While you can use heating and cooling systems as usual and people can come and go from the house, homeowners should not do the following things before their radon test:
- Open the windows
- Use their ceiling fans
- Have an attic fan on
- Use humidifiers or dehumidifiers
- Use their fireplace (chimney dampers should be closed)
These rules are in place because some things can change the amount of radon gas in a home, giving the residential radon testing service an inaccurate reading of the amount of radon in your home.
It's never a good idea to think that radon gas can't get into your home.
Radon can be found in high levels in many homes, even those that are brand new.
High levels of radon gas can cause many health problems, like lung cancer and stomach cancer.
What Happens If I Have Elevated Levels Of Radon?
If your test finds elevated radon levels, you need to have a radon mitigation system installed.
A radon mitigation system involves ventilating your home using PVC piping to draw radon gas up from the soil and out of your house.
If you have a sump pump, putting a vent pipe in the sump pit or making a hole under your concrete floor slab is the best way to do it.
A special in-line radon fan is put in the attic to pull air through the vent and radon from under the basement floor.
The easiest way is to run the vent up and out of the side of the house.
Installing a radon mitigation system usually costs between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars, depending on the size and level of radon in your home.
Contact Your Local Radon Professional
Knowing the air quality of your home will give you peace of mind and leave you breathing a little easier.
Now that you know how to prepare for a radon test, you can go ahead and call your local radon professional.
Contact the qualified radon remediation contractors at Radon Eliminator to have your potential home tested for radon.
If elevated radon levels are found, you can have a radon mitigation system installed by them as well.
Radon Eliminator will eliminate this silent killer.
Click the button below to schedule your Discounted Test today to ensure you and your family's safety from this silent killer.
References:
https://www.thehealthy.com/respiratory/radon-testing/
https://affordableradonservices.com/prepare-home-radon-test/
https://www.brickkicker.com/how-to-test-test-for-radon/
