The Dangers of Radon and What You Can Do


Vapor barrier in crawl space

In 1987, a little movie came out that picked up a small following and, over the last thirty years, has taken over the hearts of millions. The movie is called “The Princess Bride” and in one scene, a smaller villain challenges the hero to a battle of wits. The battle centers around a deadly powder described by the hero as being colorless, odorless, and tasteless.

It turns about to be one of the most comical moments in the entire film, but when you first see it, you wonder just how anyone could withstand a colorless, odorless, tasteless, poisonous substance. The scary thing is, no matter how comical this fictional powder may be, there is a poisonous substance among us today that everyone needs to take heed of and take steps to remediate. That substance is radon.

Radon is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that occurs naturally as an intermediate step in radioactive decay chains. It is itself a product of the radioactive decay of radium.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Surgeon General’s office, it has been estimated that roughly as many as 20,000 lung cancer deaths are being blamed on radon. Radon has been officially labeled as the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. In both direct and indirect health care costs, lung cancer due to radon costs the United States approximately $2 billion dollars per year.

What homeowners are concerning themselves with now that we know more about radon and what a killer it can be is finding a radon abatement service that can bring the levels of radon down to acceptable levels. Radon gas testing is done in a few different ways. Short term radon detecting devices will measure over the course of two to ninety days for local radon testing, depending on the device being used. With long-term devices being used for radon abatement service testing, the average concentration of radon is being measured over the course of ninety days.

Finding a radon abatement service in your community will put your mind and heart at ease, not to mention your lungs. More and more people are discovering that radon is an issue on their property and are taking steps to remediate the danger. The radon abatement service near you will take the time to explain the procedure of testing, what to expect the results to look like, and what to do to bring the levels back to acceptable.

This is no longer the fictional world of a beloved film where the hero has a few tricks up his sleeve in order to deal with particularly difficult villains. This is the real world where only the experts can detect where you have too much radon and do what it takes to make your home safe again for yourself and your children.

Find a radon abatement service near you today.


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