(Wampsville, NY – Feb. 2013) Each year during the heating season is the perfect time to test our homes for the presence of radon gas. It is the perfect time because the closed-house conditions of the heating season encourage the trapping the toxic gas in our homes.
Radon gas emerges from the breakdown of uranium and radium found naturally in our soils. It rises out of the soil into the atmosphere. If it finds a pathway through our homes’ exteriors, it can then concentrate in our living spaces and cause radiation damage to our lungs.
Radon gas finds its way into our homes from cracks in the foundation, water and gas pipes and clothes dryer vents. Cancer-causing radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers and kills over 21,000 people each year.
The only way to know if you have radon gas in your home is to test for it, as it is odorless, colorless and invisible. Normally, radon test kits cost anywhere between $8.50 and $17.
Through a special arrangement with New York State’s Bureau of Radiation, a limited number of free test kits will be available for homeowners who live in the more geologically radon-prone townships of Madison County, specifically; Fenner, Smithfield, Stockbridge, Madison, Nelson, Eaton, DeRuyter, Georgetown, Lebanon, Hamilton and Brookfield.
If you would like a free radon test kit and own a home in a township in the more radon-prone areas, please call 366-2361 to reserve your kit which may be picked up at the Department of Public Health (Building #5) between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. The quantity is limited so call quickly. Additional radon information is available on the Public Health’s radon page at www.healthymadisoncounty.org.
Are these radon test kits really free? How about laboratory fees?