Radon is a danger to many people all throughout the United States, but because so many people don’t even know that radon is present in their homes, it can be hard to combat indeed. After all, radon is unable to be seen with the naked eye and is also virtually odorless. Unless you’re performing radon testing, it’s unlikely that you’d easily be able to know whether or not radon was present in any given home.
And the dangers of radon can certainly be many. In fact, radon exposure has even been declared the second leading cause of lung cancer, second only behind smoking alone – according to data that was gathered by the Surgeon General. Unfortunately, this means that up to 20,000 lung cancer deaths are directly caused by radon exposure on a yearly basis here in the United States alone, let alone elsewhere all throughout the world. And as lung cancer is often not caught and treated until it has progressed quite a bit, there is no doubting the danger of it and the pain that such a diagnosis – and such a disease – have the potential and likelihood to cause.
And more people are likely to be impacted by radon than they even actually realize. In fact, it’s estimated that one home out of every 15 homes all throughout the country has a radon level that reaches or even exceeds, as is all too frequently the case, the action level that has been set by the Environmental Protection Agency (also known, perhaps more commonly, as the EPA). In some parts of the country, the likelihood of living in a home with radon in it is even more common.
Take, for example, Native American Reservations. Homes that are found on Native American Reservations are greatly increased when it comes to their chances of having high levels of radon in them. In fact, it has even been found that up to a full one third of all homes on such reservations and the land surrounding them will have radon levels meeting that previously mentioned action level – and oftentimes even exceeding it by quite a bit. For the people living in these homes, education about radon itself, radon testing services, and radon abatement methods is a must and can very much be considered to be necessary for their overall health and well being.
Fortunately, many a radon testing company exists here in the United States, and these testing companies are able to perform everything from sump pump excavation services to residential testing services. Typically, one of two tests will be used. In many cases, a short term test will be able to detect levels of radon for up to 90 days, while the longer term test, which will likely be brought in later, can detect these levels for a considerably longer period of time, well past that 90 day mark. Having these tests performed can simply work to give you a greater sense of peace of mind, but can also help to determine whether abatement services for radon in the home will be necessary.
If these abatement services are deemed to be necessary, hiring a skilled and experienced radon testing contractor is likely to be the best bet for any household. Such a contractor will know how to mitigate radon safely and effectively, bringing it down to safer levels or even, in some cases, in the best of cases, eradicating its presence quite entirely indeed. In these cases, the risk of developing lung cancer or other medical concerns in reaction to radon exposure is likely to drop quite significantly, especially as time continues to pass on and the radon levels continue to stay low.
For many people here in the United States, radon levels pose an immensely concerning risk to their health and overall safety. Having your home tested and evaluated if you are not sure where you stand in this risk will be critical, and can even, as has been the case for some people, end up saving your life in that you will no longer be at such an elevated risk for lung cancer.