In many parts of the country, one of the first steps to finalizing a home sale includes scheduling an appointment with a residential radon testing service. Without verification that the radon levels are safe, loans simply are not available to buyers. Interestingly enough, however, once the test is passed and the house is sold, few home owners ever use a residential radon testing service again, is spite of the fact that these levels can return to unsafe, and sometimes dangerous, levels.
So while a local radon mitigation company can help get a house to pass the radon test so that it can be sold, these levels can slowly creep back up to the levels that would have previously prevented the house from being sold. If you live in an area where the radon levels are known to be dangerous, have you recently had your home tested?
- Indications are that one in 15 U.S. homes is estimated to have radon levels at or above the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action level.
- Statistics show that the risk of lung cancer increases by as much as 16% per 100 Bq/m in long time average radon concentration areas.
- Making your home safe should be a priority of any parent. No parent would think to have a home without the proper carbon monoxide, fire and smoke detectors, but too many fail to make sure that their home is free of dangerous radon.
- You can have a residential radon testing service install a short-term detectors measure radon levels for two days to 90 days. The length of the test depends on the device.
- Houses with daylight basements are often more likely to have radon problems. Without the more thorough circulation of air that is allowed in a walkout basement, radon can accumulate daylight basements.
- Over 20,000 lung cancer deaths are caused each year by radon, according to the EPA and the Surgeon General’s Office.
- Making sure that your home is safe enough to sell makes sense, but it also makes sense to check radon levels for your own family after you have been in the home for awhile.
- Estimates indicate 33% of the homes checked in seven states and on three Indian lands had screening levels over 4 pCi/L, according to the EPA This 4 pCi/L level is at a point where the the EPA recommends is an action level for radon exposure.
- Surgeon General warnings indicate that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in America today.
- A family whose home has radon levels of 4 pCi/l is at danger. In fact, this amount is approximately 35 times as much radiation as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow if that same family was standing next to the fence of a radioactive waste site.
- Few parents will allow their children to live in dangerous situations, yet they do allow their parents to breathe in air that may have unsafe radon levels.
- Estimates by scientists indicate that lung cancer deaths could be reduced by 2% to 4%, or about 5,000 deaths, by lowering the radon levels in homes where those levels exceed the EPA?s action level.