Is Your Home Radioactive?

January is National Radon Action Month and the East Shore District Health Department, in conjunction with the Connecticut Department of Public Health, is offering free radon air test kits (while supplies last) to residents of Branford, East Haven and North Branford during the month of January. 

“Radon,” according to the CT DPH, “is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that is a product of the uranium decay chain.”

It is odorless, colorless and tasteless and has been found in elevated levels in one in every five homes in Connecticut. The EPA estimates that about 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year in the U.S. are radon-related.

“Exposure to radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking,” the CT DPH reports.

To guard your home and family against the harms of radon, the free test kits offered by ESDHD will be available at their offices, 14 Business Park Dr., Branford (8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday).

Patch stopped by to pick one up and we offer a step-by-step how-to; see photos with this story and/or download the PDF attached and found here. 

This year there are currently 50 kits available for ESDHD’s towns: Branford, East Haven and North Branford.

Alex Cinotti, assistant director for the department, said there may be another order of tests coming in the near future.

Last year, Cinotti said there were 150 test distributed by ESDHD to area towns. At the time of publication, he was not able to report how many tests came back with elevated radon levels.

After conducting your test at home – it’s as easy as peeling back a label ­– residents will be asked to ship results to the testing center in the pre-metered envelope.

If your test shows elevated levels of radon in your home, residents will be advised to re-test, average the results, and then have radon mitigation system installed if the results still exceed the safe levels.

To order a second test kit, you may have to go online and pay a small fee if the ESDHD does not have any left.

Before looking into a mitigation system if one is needed, residents are advised to contact a radon professional. According to the CT DPH, Radon reduction costs between $500 and $2,500 for a single family home. For a larger building, the costs will depend on the size and other characteristics of the building.

If you are a tenant and not a homeowner and radon is detected in your living space, you are advised to let your landlord know and request remediation of the contamination.

According to the CT DPH, radon can “readily move through voids in rocks and soils, and enter homes with other soil gases, through cracks and other openings in building foundations.”

Because homes are enclosed structures, radon gas, they state, can accumulate to high concentrations.

“Long-term exposure to high levels of radon gas increases the risk of developing lung cancer.”

ESDHD’s Cinotti adds that smokers who are exposed to radon increase their chances of getting lung chances by four times that of non-smokers.  

In addition to air tests, residents with private wells are encouraged to order radon water tests.