1 in 6 Edmonton homes has high radon. Find out if yours does — for free.

It is a radioactive gas that forms when uranium in soil and rock breaks down. You cannot see it, smell it or taste it, and it is in every building to some degree. Outdoors it disperses harmlessly. Indoors it can build up, and long-term exposure to a high level raises the risk of lung cancer — Health Canada identifies radon as the number one cause of lung cancer in people who have never smoked.

Yes. We place a professional continuous radon monitor in your home for two to seven days, collect it, and give you the result — at no cost and with no obligation. If your number comes back low, that is the end of it. We would rather you know your number than not.

The free short-term test uses a continuous monitor that sits on the lowest lived-in level of the house for two to seven days. It gives a first reading in about ten minutes and a result within about 24 hours of pickup. A long-term test runs 91 days between September and April, and Health Canada is clear that a long-term result is what a mitigation decision should be based on.

Health Canada's action level is 200 becquerels per cubic metre (Bq/m³), and the World Health Organization's reference level is 100. There is no threshold below which radon is known to be harmless — the risk falls as the level falls — so the guideline is a point for action, not a line between safe and unsafe.

Fall and winter. A closed-up, heated house has the strongest pressure difference pulling soil gas in and the least fresh air diluting it, so that is when levels peak and when a reading is most representative. November is Radon Action Month in Canada for exactly this reason.

Most residential installations are done in a single day. Health Canada notes that a properly installed system reduces radon by more than 80% in most homes. Older foundations, stone basements and houses without usable sub-slab drainage take longer, because the diagnostic and sealing work comes first.

It is geology plus building style. The glacial till and shale under the Edmonton region carries more uranium than the soils under most Canadian cities, and uranium decaying in soil is what produces radon in the first place. On top of that, houses here are built tight and sealed against a long, cold heating season, and most have a finished basement that people actually live in. The 2024 Cross-Canada Radon Report from the University of Calgary’s Evict Radon study puts roughly one in six Edmonton-metro homes above the Health Canada action level, with the highest average household radon of Canada’s six largest cities.

Usually the opposite. Alberta building code has required a radon rough-in since 2015, which is genuinely useful — but a rough-in is a capped pipe, not a working system, and it does nothing until a fan and a proper seal are added to it. Meanwhile newer houses are far more airtight than older ones, so anything that does get in has fewer ways out. We regularly measure higher readings in houses from the last decade than in the post-war bungalow next door. The only way to know either way is to measure the house you actually live in.