<<< back to article list

Radon Gas


Blog by Wes Morrow | October 20th, 2017


download.jpg

If you haven't heard of radon gas yet, you probably will. There has been more talk about what it is and how it affects us. Radon gas is very common and is a product of the breakdown of naturally occurring uranium in the soil. When a person is exposed to high levels of radon gas, it can cause lung cancer. When you are outdoors, the gas easily dissipates and there are no issues. Where it becomes an issue is when the gas accumulates to high levels. This could be in your home or at the workplace. The weird part is that you could have a problem in your home with radon and your neighbour may have no issues. 

You can test your home or workplace to see if the levels are higher than acceptable. I used www.radonwest.com. They send you a long term test kit (90 days). Basements are usually more suseptable to radon gas, however, you should test whereever you spend most of your time in the house. If there is more than one area, then I would suggest getting a couple kits. 

The good news? If you have high radon levels, there are mitigation techniques that are fairly reasonable. You can check Radon West's web site for more information. I just got the test results back from my place and the radon gas levels are below acceptable levels. 

Here is a map of radon levels across Canada.

radon_gas_map_Canada2.gif

If you have any questions, let me know.