Radon gas is classified into carcinogen. It is the end product of radium, uranium, and thorium decay of various elements on earth such as rocks, soil, and water. Unlike another gas such as carbon monoxide, radon is hard to detect by human sense. You cannot smell, see or taste it. It is practically odorless, colorless, and tasteless. That’s why it is hard to know if you are currently exposed to radon or not. Radon will be released into air once it is produced. It will get easily seep through any place. It can seep through small cracks or holes of your home’s foundation. Another problem is that, radon can seep through the water which lead to contamination.
Radon gas is dangerous
Radon gas is dangerous
Radon gas is dangerous because it put your health at risk. It can lead to lung cancer. For smokers, radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer development. For non-smokers, it is the main cause of developing lung cancer. However, there are no obvious symptoms that tells you are currently exposed to radon gas. There are no tests that can diagnose the amount of radon inside your body. Therefore, you will only know you are suffered from radon poisoning until it is too late.
Lung Cancer
Most people, especially smokers find out that they have been exposed to radon after they develop lung cancer. It means, they have been exposed to radon for years. Radon poisoning won’t cause any major changes to your body. It will affect your body slowly and steadily until it affect cellular changes in your body. Of course, it is easier to learn the symptoms of lung cancer. They include constant cough, chest pain, and drastic weigh loss (without purposely trying). If it’s the case, what you can do is to seek proper treatment for the cancer.
Lung Cancer
Precaution
If you are not experiencing any symptoms that you develop lung cancer, you need to start taking precaution to reduce the amount of radon in your surroundings, especially your home. First, perform a radon test. You can choose short-term or long-term test. Short-term test only require passive radon testing kit you can purchase on your own.
Then, you can send the data collected to a laboratory and wait for the result. Or, you can also perform long-term radon test which can only be done by professional. They conduct the test much longer which can up to more than 3 months until you see the results. However, the result is more reliable because the test is more thorough.
Other things you can do to reduce radon include sealing the cracks on the floor or walls properly, improving the ventilation included the under-floor ones, installing radon sump system in places with the highest possible radon exposure, and avoiding the passage of this radioactive gas from the basement to the living room. It is because basement and the first floor are most likely to be the place where radon is accumulated. It is because basement is the closest to the ground.