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Most people spend the large majority of their lives indoors, breathing indoor air.
It is often dirtier than the air outside, and almost nobody checks it.
Outdoor air is enormous and moves. A room is small and still, and everything released in it stays put until something carries it out.
Radon is a gas produced by rock and soil. It seeps up through floors and foundations and collects in the lowest parts of a building.
How would you notice radon in your home?
The US environmental agency recommends fixing a home at 4 picocuries per litre or above, and says to consider fixing between 2 and 4.
The reason for that second sentence matters.
The agency states there is no known safe level of exposure. The action level is a practical line, not a boundary between harmless and harmful.
Burning anything indoors — gas, wood, a candle — releases fine particles. Incomplete burning releases more.
They are small enough to reach deep into the lungs.
Large particles are caught in the nose and throat. Fine ones travel to the deepest part of the lung and lodge there, irritating and damaging tissue.
Some pollutants, including radon and certain combustion chemicals, attach to those small particles and are carried in with them.
The particle is a vehicle as well as an irritant.
Use the extractor fan over the hob, every time, and keep gas burners properly adjusted.
Advice from the agency, and close to free.
Moisture lets mould and dust mites grow, and both are common triggers for breathing problems.
Damp is not just a decorating problem.
Which of these tells you about your own air?
Tap an item, then a bucket
The air indoors is the air you actually breathe. One risk needs a test because no sense will find it, one is made by your own cooking, and one grows where it is damp.