WE'RE YOUR SOLUTION TO RADON

When radiation of all types interacts with the cells in your body, it can cause damage to how the cell replicates. Usually, this makes the cell unable to replicate as the cell’s instructions are damaged successfully. However, if the damage is done just the right way, it can cause the cell to replicate uncontrollably, becoming cancer. Typically, your body is very good at catching and dealing with these mutations, but they can go unnoticed and unchecked by the body.

 

Lung cancer is especially problematic as there are very few outward symptoms for the affected person or medical professionals until it’s very advanced. This, combined with the fact that Radon is colourless, odourless, and undetectable without specific testing methods, means it’s very easy not to realise you have a problem until it’s too late. According to Public Health Ontario, there are about 850 deaths per year related to Radon-induced lung cancer, equivalent to over two people per day dying in the province due to this invisible cause.

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Thankfully, we can test for Radon through professional services and do-it-yourself kits that you can purchase through us or from your local hardware store.

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Once you know your Radon level, you can decide whether or not you want to do something about it. As it’s radiation, there is no such thing as a “safe” level as it’s inherently bad. There are various thresholds that various groups suggest you take action at, all determined by the same dose calculations, just with slightly different variables used.

 

When discussing Radon, you’ll often see numbers expressed in Bequerel’s (Bq/m³) or picoCuries (pCi/L). Both are a measurement of radioactivity (how often a material radioactively decays in a given volume), not the dose (how much radioactive energy is deposited in the body).

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Becquerels are the standard scientific unit (SI), defined as one radioactive disintegration per second (in a cubic meter) and used everywhere but in the USA. The USA or imperial unit is the picoCurie or one trillionth of a Curie. This is 2.2 disintegrations per minute, or 0.037 disintegrations per second (in a litre, or 0.001 m³), based on how often a pound of radium emits radiation. 

The conversion between the two is easy as 37 Bq/m³ = 1 pCi/L (pCi/L x 37 = Bq/m³). Both units are named after prominent radiation scientists, namely Henri Becquerel, who first discovered evidence of radioactivity, and Marie and Pierre Curie, who pioneered the “theory of radioactivity.” All three share the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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Health Canada’s action level is 200 Bq/m³, the USA’s EPA’s action level is 150 (technically 4.8 pCi/L), and the World Health Organization’s is 100 Bq/m³. As the health risks from radiation increase exponentially, these action levels are where the various groups have calculated that your risk begins to increase more dramatically and, as such, where you should start to take action.