You’ve made the decision to stop renting and buy a home.  Maybe you have one child and another is on the way, so you want a house to call home.  Making a decision to buy a home is a BIG deal, but besides style, bedrooms and locations, your family’s health and safety should be a major factor in that decision.  How can you assure your family’s health and safety?  One way is to have a Radon test done prior to purchasing the home, this is usually done during the inspection phase of the home buying process.

So, what exactly is Radon?  It is a naturally occurring radioactive gas, that is found pretty much everywhere.  It is emitted out of the ground and some areas have higher concentrations than others.  When you have your property tested for Radon you’re looking for concentrations of less than 4.0 Picocuries per liter.  Tests are usually performed by leaving a special canister in the basement of the property for a few days, then the canister is analyzed in a lab and results are sent to you, usually within 24 of the canister being tested.  If the concentration is higher than 4.0 Pci/L, remediation equipment will need to be installed.  If this is the case you might even be able to negotiate to have the seller pay for the remediation installation.  Usually, a remediation system runs around $1500 installed.  Once the system is in place Radon levels will drop to a safe level in a matter of hours.

Recently, the Patch posted an article about some of the parts of New Jersey with high and low concentrations of Radon.  Thankfully, none of the 22 towns with the highest Radon concentrations are found in Union County.  However, 7 towns in our county have what is classified as “moderate Radon risk”.  Those seven towns are Berkeley Heights, Summit, New Providence, Scotch Plains, Springfield, Westfield, and Clark.  There is one town in Union County that is deemed “low risk” for Radon, that town is Cranford.  The Patch article contains the complete list and a map of Radon concentration in the state.