The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU) is once again encouraging residents to test their homes for radon gas this Fall and Winter. Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers and is linked to 16% of lung cancer deaths in Canada. The Radon: Know Your Level Study, completed in 2018, was a 3-year research project in Windsor and Essex County that was led by the WECHU. During each year of the study, approximately 1000 local homeowners tested their homes for radon using a kit supplied by the WECHU. When combining results from all 3 study years, a total of 11% of homes had indoor radon levels above 200 Bq/m³ which is a level considered unsafe by Health Canada.  Essex County had a significantly greater proportion of homes with levels above 200 Bq/m3 (18%) compared to the City of Windsor (6%).

“COVID-19 continues to make an impact on the amount of time we spend at home and has changed where many of us work, live, and learn. For some, this has meant spending multiple hours per day in basement home offices or in virtual home school environments,” says Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, Acting Medical Officer of Health. “We strongly recommend testing these spaces or testing the lowest lived-in levels of any home for radon gas”.
There are several ways to test a home for radon:

1) Purchasing an easy-to-use 91-day long-term test kit at a cost of approximately $50.

2) Borrowing a digital short-term test device at any open branch of the Essex County Library for free.  A short-term test device can act as a screening tool to help determine if further long-term testing is needed.

3)  Hiring a certified C-NRPP radon professional to test your home.

Radon is a colourless, odorless, and tasteless gas. The only way to know the radon level in your home is to test for it.

November is Radon Action Month. For more information on radon, visit the Health Unit website

Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay