Radon Facts

What is Radon?
Radon is radiation. There are no safe levels of radiation, so the higher your radon level, the greater your risk. Health experts recommend that you try to minimize your exposure to all forms of radiation including x-rays, nuclear radiation and solar radiation, but especially radon because of its ability to mutate cells within the human body.
Radon is element # 86 on the periodic chart of elements. It is a colorless, tasteless and odorless gas with a radioactive half-life of only 3.82 days. Radon is created when radium, element #88, breaks down through radioactive decay. Radium's half-life is 1622 years. The amount of radon in your home will be determined by the amount of radium present in the soil that surrounds your house. It also depends on the ease of entry and amount of negative pressure within the home.
How Radon Causes Cancer
All radioactive elements break down (radioactive decay) over time through a process measured in half-lives. As these elements break down, they actually create entirely new elements, each with its own specific half-life. Each time a new element is created, it releases more radiation. The faster this occurs, the more radiation is produced. As radon breaks down, it creates other radioactive elements called radon progeny or daughters - each with even shorter half-lives that break down again, again and again in half-lives from minutes to just fractions of a second.

Children's cells are still growing and changing rapidly so they are at the greatest risk as well as anyone who spends a great deal of time at home. Unfortunately, the human body does not produce symptoms or warning signs to alert us when being exposed to radiation. Radon causes cancer, but does not cause headaches, nausea or other feelings of ill health. Most people won't know they have cancer until they hear it from their doctor. The only way to know if your family is being exposed is to test.
How Is Radon Measured?

1 pCi/L equals 2.2 radioactive explosions every minute in every liter of air. That doesn't sound like much until you consider the amount of air within a house. For example, a 1,000 square foot home with 4pCi/L will have about 2 million explosions occurring in that house every single minute of every day. If they made special eye glasses that would allow people to see those explosions as they occurred, there is no doubt that everyone with a radon problem would have it fixed!

You may have seen guys dressed up in radiation suits on T.V. carrying a Geiger counter. Every time a Geiger counter makes a "tick" sound, it represents one of those radioactive explosions and the closer they get to the source of the radiation, the more it ticks. In other words, "Stay Away!" Radon tests work in a similar way by counting the number of explosions over a period of time to determine the amount of radon in your home. So in reality, radon test kits simply tell us is how many of those radioactive explosions are occurring in our home every minute of every hour of every day.
Time Vs. Radon


How Radon Enters Our Homes

The Bad News
Last year in America, over 21,000 of our loved ones died from cancer caused by radon. Our country spent over 2 Billion dollars in health care costs due to radon exposure and sadly, this year it will happen again because most people still do not know that radon has been linked to over 12% of all cancer deaths. Our State and Federal governments are trying everything they can to educate and inform all of us about radon but they simply do not have the proper funding to get the message out. An increase in the radon awareness budget does not seem likely anytime in the near future.
The Good News
All the information you need to know about radon is right here and it only takes about 15 minutes to learn the facts. Protect your family and become an advocate for radon awareness. We can save thousands of lives every year through a grassroots effort by telling our friends, neighbors and loved ones about radon. Together, we can make a difference.
Protecting Your Family Is Easy... Learn the Facts, Test your Home.
If a Problem is Found, Fix It.
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Thank you and we appreciate your support!