The Silent Enemy

Many of you have probably read that the inspector found higher levels of radon in our basement here in Maine. Apparently, a "safe" level of radon in a home must be lower than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter).The EPA recommends that you do something to reduce your home’s indoor radon levels if your radon test results are 4.0 pCi/L or higher. Our levels were at 12 pCi/L. The levels of radon can be adjusted through what is called "radon mitigation". I am not a radon specialist, but then, neither are any of my readers, so you'll be more willing to forgive the laymen's terms, right?

I guess radon is a silent, invisible and odorless enemy that creeps into basements and crawl spaces and increases your chances at lung cancer. Before you all panic, our lives are not in jeopardy. It is after years and years of exposure to higher levels of radon that cause the problems. Another thing to keep in mind, winter is a time when radon levels are usually higher, according to the radon specialist that was in our home on Tuesday. So, our levels are most likely lower in the summer when the home is aired out, the snow pack is gone from off the ground and our heat is off.

Like I said in a previous post, we are waiting for our radon mitigation to be done on the 24th and are on a short list in case they have cancellations.

We had the inspection of our home down in NH and surprise, surprise, they found high levels of radon in that basement too! So after numerous phone calls from us to our realtor and from our realtor to the buyers' realtor, we came to an agreement for them to pay for our new basement to have the radon safely ventilated out as well. That can be done after we move in though.

Until then, we are packing up the house and wrapping things up. My house is not spotless. In fact, it looks kind of bare and our guest room looks like a cardboard jungle. This too shall pass. Only 30 days!