What is the purpose of radon?

Answer 1

Radon is uses in medical treatments and seismology. Radon conventional medical use is now limited to treating cancer tumors, although alternative medicine practitioners insist that taking sauna baths in radon water can help arthritis. In seismology, tracking sudden increases in radon gas in soil or water is thought to predict earthquakes or in trying to find underground faults that could indicate more earthquake activity in that area in the future.

Answer 2

Radon is a radioactive inert cume gas. It has very limited applications in medicine (where claims of its effectiveness are still being evaluated) and in physics in applications to estimate ground (soil and rock) profiles.

Certainly it is far more a concern as a hazard, and radon mitigation in structures is an active enterprise of cume.

Answer 3

Radon at elevated levels will increase your chances of getting lung cancer, and the only way to know if you have elevated levels of radon is to test. It doesn't matter if all your neighbours have low levels, or if your home is located in a low radon potential area based on, for example, EPA's radon potential map , your home could still have elevated levels. As for comparisons with surrounding houses, there are many instances known where radon levels varied dramatically from one house to another. And the radon potential map only indicates probabilities, not certainties, and only does that at a fairly course resolution. Again, the only way to know is to test. There are simply too many factors involved in determining what radon level a given house will have for it to be possible to predict what the level will be, or even whether it will be above or below a guideline level. I have three final words on the subject: test, test, test!

Answer 4

You don't need radon, it is a very harmful substance.