November 2021

Radon In Your Drinking Water?

Where you get your drinking water from is important! Did you realize that aside from coming from the building materials inside your home, you may have Radon dissolved in your tap water?

One place where we are exposed to Radon is in the water, especially if you’re using well water. Radon is actually dissolved into the water and is released in a gas form. To some extent we do ingest it if it’s the water at a saturated level. We could be drinking the Radon in the water- but the problem is there hasn’t been any recorded data that points to ingesting Radon as being a problem, it’s it’s the gas, Radon that’s causing lung cancer, that’s the, that’s the real problem.

However, things like taking a hot shower allows the evaporation from the hot water, putting high levels of Radon in the air. There are ways, though, to mitigate the Radon in the water. Oftentimes, well systems in Florida use air aeration tanks to begin the process because of the sulfur content and odor in the water. And that’s a great way to help mitigate the Radon as well because it gives it time, and it’s literally aerating the water. So you’re literally taking the gas out of the water, which is exactly what we’re trying to do.

Well water and city water are two different things

When we drink from our public water, it has already undergone processing through a water treatment plant. There the requirements of testing are held to a standard and is constantly monitored. In fact, water is a very touchy subject with the health department here in FL. The public is always allowed access to the testing results of the city water, We would only recommend testing city water if you’re concerned with particular problems of the building, like lead pipes or something that is very localized to a specific location.

If you’re doing FHA or VA loan, you will want to test all sorts of water. The VA very specifically require a water test for part of the loan package. There are several different water tests that we can perform for you. We don’t do the test, but we do the sampling and then provide it to the lab.

Is  Radon Testing Available?

There are different ways and different tests out there. There’s a simple what we call the bacteria test. If you’re on a well we recommend that you have your well tested yearly: the water table is constantly changing down here and you can have bacteria move into your well. Generally if you’re on a well you also have a septic in your yard. Depending on how the water table is moving around, you could be bringing bacteria from your septic into your well. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on those things. That test in particular is not a big deal. As a homeowner, you can actually do it yourself. You can contact the Department of Health; go down to the water department and they will give you the equipment you need to take the sample. You bring it to them and they’ll test it for you for a fee. The test we do is basically the same.

We can also do it on site while we’re there inspecting; it’s a simple well test and it’s going to test for E coli and coliform bacteria. These are the bacteria that most commonly lead to intestinal problems.

There is a full panel test that is more of what’s called the FHA /VA test. That one gets sent to Orlando lab (there’s actually only a few labs in the whole country that do the full panel water test). That one that one is quite extensive, and the fee supports that. It does, however, include testing for leads and nitrates, nitrates turbidity, things of that nature.

Have more questions? Call me, I’d love to discuss!

Rick

239-537-1186

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