By Art Nash
Radon is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas produced from decaying, subsurface uranium. Radiation particles are transmitted through radon gas — and though it isn’t the type of radioactivity that can penetrate cloth or skin, it can damage the soft tissues within the lungs through natural respiration.
In the long run, radon increases your risk of lung cancer and contributes to about a tenth of lung cancer deaths in the United States. Due to how elusive it is to our empirical senses, the ONLY way you’ll know if your home, office or school has high concentrations is by testing, which any person can successfully do with a certified kit to get a sample of room air in the lowest living area of the home.
With these samples sent to a certified lab (via mail if they can get out of your home and to a lab in just over a week), radon concentrations are given in a number followed by the label “picocuries per liter of air.” The Environmental Protection Agency states that 4 pCi/L (4 picocuries per liter of air) is the threshold at which remediation should begin.
One example of remediation is to seal clear, intact plastic around the perimeter of a crawlspace to trap the radon beneath it. In the case of a cement basement, it may mean filling in any cracks (with a nonshrinking fill material).
Suppose retesting after each intervention shows these steps don’t bring the concentration of rado down. The final solution often is sleeving a piece of plastic piping through a tight hole under the cement plain and having the other end go upward and out of the house. Expelling the gas may require a small inline fan, which is fairly easy to maintain.
Talk with someone knowledgeable before investing money in equipment. According to national protocol, always start with a “short term” charcoal test (less than a week exposure), and only if it is just on the margin (yet above 4 pCi/L) consider following up with a ‘long term’ (often three months to a year exposure) kit. Although the process of self-testing is easy, homeowners must follow each step.
If you see the digital battery or plug-in radon monitors, don’t rely on the readings for a diagnostic benchmark (unless it is contractor-grade). Homeowners spending a few hundred dollars may invest in consumer-grade monitors to see differences in magnitude and changes in the dynamics that come about from entering/leaving, meteorological changes and operation of the home, but don’t depend on them for your decision on what level of mitigation to pursue.
Through Emeritus Professor Rich Seifert (and now myself), the UAF Cooperative Extension has collaborated with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources on radon outreach and testing since 1989. For the last several years, free short-term kits have been available to the public (with long-term kits available if the original test meets the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists’ protocol for retesting).
Do you want one? You can test, even if you have done it before.
Go to forms.gle/HRZ5wsGgjHnQiAEYA, fill out a few questions, and you can pick up a free kit at DNR’s Fairbanks office (3354 College Road), have one mailed to your home, or call the Alaska Radon Hotline at 1-800-478-8324 and I’ll help however I can with information or referrals.
Art Nash is the statewide energy specialist at the UAF Cooperative Extension and has worked with radon tests and concerns since 2007. Contact him at alnashjr@alaska.edu.
