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Check Your Basements

Wednesday, 28 October 2015 13:54

The Canadian Cancer Society is reminding people with finished basements in Oxford County to get your homes tested for radon gas.

The Canadian Cancer Society is reminding people with finished basements in Oxford County to get your homes tested for radon gas.

Radon gas can seep into your home through the basement and is the second leading cause of lung cancer.  Senior Manager of Public Issues Kelly Gorman tells Heart FM radon is odourless and tasteless.

"We are encouraging people to test their homes, there are kits that you can buy and they are not that expensive and you put it in your home to test to see what the level of Radon is in your home, it is recommended to test at the lowest level of your home, which is generally in the basement where people tend to spend the most amount of time."

Gorman says for the tests to be accurate, health Canada recommends keeping the kits in your basement for a long time, typically 3-4 months. She adds it kills roughly 850 people in Ontario every year and statistics from Health Canada show that 11.5 percent of homes in Oxford have high levels of Radon.

"In that study is shows the different levels that they have across Canada, in Oxford County they found 11.5 percent of home with higher than normal levels of Radon which is higher than the Provincial average."

Gorman tells Heart FM a little bit of radon gas is harmless, however you should get your home tested.

"If your spending more time in your basement and you do have higher levels of Radon, then yes you are at greater risk, so really it's all about testing though, these are easy steps we can take as a society to test our homes to help reduce our risks of cancer."

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