Safety at home includes watching out for your house's indoor air quality. Here are three airborne threats and descriptions of how to detect them.
Radon
Radon is a radioactive, colorless, odorless gas that is naturally occurring in the ground and can seep into the lowest levels of a home. You can test for radon with a simple inexpensive kit which includes a collector that the homeowner places in the house's lowest level for 2 to 7 days. The collector is then mailed to a lab which sends back the radon test results.
If you have excess radon in your home, there are several steps you can take to decrease it. The primary way is to set up a vent pipe system and a fan under the floor. This process, called sub-slab depressurization, prevents radon from entering the house by venting it to the outside air. Other methods include increasing ventilation throughout the house, installing a radon sump, and sealing floors and walls.
Carbon Monoxide
Carbon Monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas emitted from unvented kerosene and gas space heaters; leaking chimneys and furnaces; malfunctioning furnaces, gas water heaters, wood stoves, and fireplaces; gas stoves; generators and other gasoline powered equipment; and automobile exhaust from attached garages.
At low concentrations CO can cause fatigue and chest pains as well as flu-like symptoms that disappear when people leave their homes. At higher concentrations, it causes impaired vision, loss of coordination, headaches, dizziness, confusion, reduced brain function, and nausea. At very high concentrations it is fatal.
Carbon monoxide detectors can help alert homeowners to excessive concentrations of the gas. The best detectors will display CO concentrations in parts per million (ppm) so they can show you if levels are inching up. Many alarms will not go off until levels reach 70 ppm, but as little as 30 ppm is dangerous to children and pregnant women. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends that you place a CO detector on every level of your home.
Smoke Detectors
Smoke detectors come in two varieties, some of which are bundled with CO detectors. Ionization detectors are good at detecting fast burning, flaming fires but often sound false alarms from burnt food and steam so they are not good for use near a kitchen or bathroom. Photoelectric smoke alarms are better at detecting smoky and smoldering fires. Some units combine both kinds of detection.
