No one wants to believe that their home might have a radon gas problem, but the downsides of not checking far outweigh the annoyance of doing a proper inspection. Radon is a dangerous, radioactive gas that finds its way into your home from deep in the earth. It can cause serious health problems if you don’t take steps to mitigate it. We’ll show you how to protect your home against radon so you can feel a little bit safer every day.
Be Proactive Early On
Perhaps the best way to protect your home from radon is to consider it in the early stages of either buying or building your house. If you want to buy a house, ask the previous owner if they performed a radon test or have any mitigation in place. If you plan on building, you can actually plan ahead and adjust the schematics to more effectively prevent radon from entering your home in the future by working with your contractor.
Regularly Test Your Home
Before you do anything else, you’ll want to test your home for its current radon levels. Radon isn’t distributed evenly all over the place and might not even be an issue in your home. No matter what, though, a proper radon test will tell you all you need to know. There are a few things about a radon test to keep in mind:
- Besides using doors to the outside, keep your home as sealed as possible while performing the test.
- Make sure you leave the testing unit alone for the recommended number of days.
- Place the testing device in the lowest part of your home, such as in the basement or crawlspace.
- Testing devices come in short-term and long-term varieties, the long-term tests will be more accurate.
Seal Cracks and Openings
A quick, do-it-yourself way to help your home from taking in more radon is to ensure you fill and seal any major cracks or openings you may find around the bottom parts of your house. Radon can often find its way into your home through cracks in the foundation. Fixing these kinds of problems early on can have a significant impact on how much radon gets inside of your house.
Radon Mitigation Systems
If radon is a serious problem in your home, your best bet is to hire a radon mitigation expert and have them install a full radon mitigation system in your home. Radon mitigation systems use various methods to pull radon out of the air in the lower parts of the home and siphon it up through pipes and out into the open air. If it’s between installing these systems and jeopardizing your and your family’s health, the choice should be rather obvious.
