Radon is an unwelcome house guest that we’re careful to boot out. We welcome wild turkeys, barred owls, and a local opossum to visit but radon comes uninvited.
Our house was built in 1947 atop an ancient sand dune formed when the glaciers receded around 9,000 years ago. Fierce Southwest winds blew sand from the Cedar River up to where our house was built thousands of years later. Down in that sand or the rock beneath it is uranium. As it degrades it turns into radon that percolates up and enters our house.
Noble Gas
Physicists consider radon a noble gas, but there’s nothing noble about what it can do to human health. Radon is a stealthy gas that is odorless, invisible, and tasteless. It’s the number two cause of lung cancer in America behind smoking.
Mitigating Radon
When we bought our home in 2010 the former owner had just installed a radon mitigation system. Basically, it’s a fan that vents radon outside. The gas has a half-life of only 3.8 days. That means half of it will have degraded into potentially nasty polonium in about four days. However, these gasses are diluted and break down quickly and pose little danger outside a building. Eventually, they further degrade into lead.
Alpha Emitter
Radon is a radioactive alpha emitter. A single sheet of paper can stop its particles. The particles are dangerous when breathed in and lodged in the lungs. There they can cause lung cancer.
Prevention
Prevention is simple and involves venting radon from the house to the outside. On a December morning Neil McDonald, a licensed radon mitigation specialist, visited Winding Pathways. He replaced our worn-out radon fan with a new one that has more oomph.
“Any house built after 2015 likely has a radon venting system built into it that channels the gas outdoors. Probably the majority of older houses have some radon inside and lack a mitigation system. Radon can be anywhere but many areas of the country have especially high concentrations of it and the Midwest is one of the worst regions,” he said while he replaced our fan.
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- Simple replacement
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- Neil McDonald, Radon mitigation specialist
Test Kits
Uneven is good.
A few years ago, we wondered if our radon removal system was working so we bought two test kits at a local home store. We ran a test with our system going and mailed it to a lab. It showed a pcl/L level under 2. Then we turned the system off and retested it. Radon levels were about 5. Our system works! The government recommends action in any building with a level of 4 or above. Test kits and electronic testing devices can be purchased at many home improvement and hardware stores.
When Is Radon Most Concentrated?
“Radon tends to be most concentrated in homes during the summer and winter when windows are closed and furnaces or air conditioners are running. Generally, levels are lower in spring and fall when people keep their windows open, allowing the gas to flow outside. Concentrations are usually highest in basements,” he continued.
Replacing the Machine is Part of Our Maintenance
We knew our old radon fan was on its last legs when its noise level increased. That’s when we invited Noel to visit and install a new fan. Switching it out only took about an hour.
Helpful Sites
Helpful information on radon can be found at the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. Googling Radon Mitigation takes a person to many sources. For Iowans, Health and Human Services is a helpful site. Our tax dollars doing good work to keep people safe. Radon mitigation companies operate in nearly all larger towns. We hired MidAmeria Basement Systems to replace our fan.
Making sure radon is not a problem is similar to having health checkups and cleaning the woodstove and gas fireplaces. Maintenance! We continue to welcome our wild turkeys and possums to our yard while kicking radon out of the house.
