Radon: What Child Care Professionals Can Do

Testing your child care centre for radon is easy.

1. Purchase a long-term radon test kit, install it on the lowest occupied level of your program (where occupants spend a minimum of 4 hours per day) during the fall and winter months, and leave it in place for a minimum of three months. Or, hire a certified radon professional to help you test. Tell client families you are testing.
2. At the end of three months, send the radon test kit to the laboratory address included with the kit. The laboratory will analyze the kit and send report back to you with your radon levels.
3. Let client families know if your radon levels are below the guideline or above the guideline. If your levels are above the guideline, a radon professional can offer options for what to do next.

Note that radon levels in a building fluctuate over time, so it is important to measure levels over an extended period of time to get an accurate result. A three-month test should be used to determine if a building’s radon concentration exceeds the Canadian guideline level of 200 Bq/m3.