3,000+ Homes Mitigated Across Alberta and British Columbia · Guaranteed Results
Radon Mitigation and Testing in Salmon Arm
RadonCare tests and fixes radon in homes across Salmon Arm and the Shuswap, from Blind Bay and Sorrento to Sicamous and Enderby. Questions about testing or a result? Call us for advice, and if your home needs a system, we'll give you a quote.
Not tested yet? Start with a test kit →
Got a reading from a library radon detector? Call and talk to a radon expert about what it means for your home.
On this page: Our Results · Radon Levels · Testing · Cost · FAQ · Free Quote
★★★★★ 4.9
280+ Google reviews
★★★★★ 4.9
on HomeStars
C-NRPP Certified
Consumer Choice Award winner, 2022 to 2026
Partner in radon research led by the University of Calgary
Our Radon Mitigation Work in Salmon Arm and the Shuswap
Just a Few of Our Results From the Area
Our crews work across Salmon Arm and the Shuswap on a regular basis, from walkout basements in Salmon Arm to crawlspace homes around Blind Bay and Sorrento.
Each system is designed for the house it goes in. Canada's national standard for radon mitigation says a system that is properly designed and installed by certified professionals can lower radon by about 90% or more. How well a system works comes down to who designs and installs it. We've lowered the radon in every home and commercial building we've ever worked on.
Tricky homes are the ones our technicians enjoy most. Even after more than 3,000 homes, we still run into something new now and then, and when we do, the whole team works on it together, so every job has the experience of all our crews across Alberta and BC behind it.
The Five Homes Below
Before Mitigation
180 to 960Bq/m³
After
12 to 47Bq/m³
960→23Bq/m³
Walkout bungalow, northwest Salmon Arm
650→26Bq/m³
Bungalow with a basement, northeast Salmon Arm
455→12Bq/m³
Crawlspace home, Blind Bay
180→20Bq/m³
Split level, southeast Salmon Arm
256→47Bq/m³
Walkout basement, northeast Salmon Arm
Readings in Bq/m³, before and after, from independent lab tests or digital monitors that passed C-NRPP testing. The southeast Salmon Arm home was already under Health Canada's guideline, and the owners chose to go lower. Photos are from our installs in the area.
What Your Radon Level Means
From Fresh Air to Canada's Guideline
Radon is measured in becquerels per cubic metre (Bq/m³). Here is where a long-term result sits next to the levels that matter in Canada, drawn to scale up to 300.
5 to 15
85
100
134
200
300
About 5 to 15Bq/m³
Fresh outdoor air. Radon from the ground gets diluted in open air.
85Bq/m³
The average Canadian home.
100Bq/m³
The reference level the World Health Organization suggests for countries.
134Bq/m³
The average home tested in the Columbia-Shuswap.
200Bq/m³ (5.4 pCi/L)
Health Canada's guideline. Above it, Health Canada recommends lowering your level within a year, and sooner the higher it is.
300Bq/m³
The upper limit the World Health Organization and European rules set for a country's reference level.
200 is not the goal. Health Canada says no level of radon is risk free, and 200 is not a stopping point if your home can reasonably go lower.
Above 300: How High Radon Can Go
Not drawn to scale
800Bq/m³
Canada's guideline from 1988 to 2007, before it was lowered to 200.
4,527Bq/m³
The highest home tested in the Columbia-Shuswap in the 2024 survey.
32,321Bq/m³
The highest Canadian home tested in the 2024 survey.
All levels are long-term averages, which is how Health Canada compares a home with its guideline. Sources: Health Canada (200) and its 2012 survey report (800 until 2007), the BC Centre for Disease Control (fresh air), the World Health Organization and EU Directive 2013/59/Euratom (100 and 300, for reference), and the 2024 Cross-Canada Survey of Radon (85, 134, 4,527 and 32,321).
Have a result over 200 Bq/m³, or not sure what yours means? Call or text us and we'll talk it through.
Radon Levels in Salmon Arm and the Shuswap
What Local Tests Have Found
About 1 in 3 homes tested across the Columbia-Shuswap region were at or above Health Canada's radon guideline. Salmon Arm itself has tested lower, at about 1 in 7.
Those figures come from the 2024 Cross-Canada Survey of Radon, led by Evict Radon at the University of Calgary, which also found six in ten homes in the region at or above 100 Bq/m³, the World Health Organization's reference level. Take Action on Radon's winter 2019 test kit challenge found much the same in Salmon Arm and the Shuswap, and several neighbouring towns tested higher (table below).
The BC Centre for Disease Control's radon map estimates that about 1 in 4 homes in the Salmon Arm area are over 200 Bq/m³. None of these numbers can tell you about your own house, though. Radon levels vary widely from one building to the next, even in the same neighbourhood (BC Centre for Disease Control). A long-term test is the only way to know.
Image: Take Action on Radon, 100 Radon Test Kit Challenge, Salmon Arm and Shuswap Area (January 2020 report).
- Columbia-Shuswap region: 32.5% at or above 200, 61% at or above 100 (1,085 homes, 2024 Cross-Canada Survey)
- City of Salmon Arm: 15% at or above 200, 51% at or above 100 (200 to 299 homes, same survey)
- Salmon Arm and Shuswap area: 16% over 200, 52% over 100 (168 homes, winter 2019, Take Action on Radon)
- Enderby: 34% over 200, 72% over 100 (92 homes, winter 2023)
- Vernon: 37% over 200, 69% over 100 (181 homes, winter 2020)
- Revelstoke: 46% over 200, 69% over 100 (120 homes, winter 2021)
- Sicamous: 11% over 200, 59% over 100 (46 homes, winter 2020)
Share of homes tested at or above each level (survey) or over it (Take Action on Radon community reports).
Why Radon Runs High in the Shuswap
Radon comes from uranium breaking down in soil and rock, and the BC Interior naturally has higher radon levels than the coast. Interior Health says that in many Interior communities about 1 in 3 homes tested are over the guideline, compared with about 1 in 113 in Metro Vancouver.
Closer to Salmon Arm, the BC Geological Survey has recorded uranium-bearing rock around the edges of the Shuswap metamorphic complex, a belt of gneiss and granite-like rock named after the region. That is part of why the area runs high.
“The geology of British Columbia’s Interior is rich in elements that produce radon gas.”
Interior Health, letter to school districts, September 2025
Radon and Your Health
Health Canada says radon is the number one cause of lung cancer in people who don't smoke, and people who smoke and are exposed to radon have an even higher risk. The risk is long-term, not immediate. When radon breaks down, it forms tiny radioactive particles that, once breathed in, can damage lung tissue. You may read online that radon causes headaches or tiredness, but Canada's national radon standard says it does not produce symptoms such as coughing or headaches. We're radon professionals, not doctors, so we stick to what Health Canada and peer-reviewed research support.
Health Questions?
Talk to your doctor or call HealthLink BC at 8‑1‑1.
Read more: Health Canada on radon · the Health Canada study behind its lung cancer estimate (Chen et al., 2012)
How to Test Your Home for Radon
Testing Yourself Is Easy
Our long-term test kit is the kind of test Health Canada recommends: a device on the C-NRPP list that stays in your home for at least three months. The lab analysis and a prepaid return envelope are included. Place it in the lowest level of your home where someone spends at least four hours a day, ideally through the heating season, then mail it to the lab.
Long-Term Radon Test Kit
Lab analysis and a prepaid return envelope included. Free shipping in BC.
$54.99
Order a Test KitPrefer to watch your levels on a screen? We also sell digital monitors, like the Airthings Corentium Home. It passed C-NRPP's testing of home radon monitors.
Borrow a Free Radon Detector From the Library
Libraries across the Shuswap lend a digital radon detector, free with a library card, thanks to the BC Lung Foundation. Place a hold online and pick it up at your nearest branch. They are popular, so you may have to wait, but it's a good free first look at your home.
Branches that lend one: Salmon Arm, Sicamous, Silver Creek, Enderby, South Shuswap (Blind Bay), Falkland and North Shuswap (Scotch Creek), plus Chase through the Thompson-Nicola Regional Library. Armstrong, Vernon, Lumby, Revelstoke and Kamloops lend them too.
Most branches lend them from October to March (Okanagan Regional Library October 1 to March 31, Thompson-Nicola September to April). The BC Lung Foundation lists every library in BC that lends one.
What a Short Test Can and Cannot Tell You
Radon rises and falls from day to day and season to season, so a few days or weeks of readings cannot give you your yearly average. If a short test reads high, call us: depending on how high it is and how long it ran, it can be enough to act on. If it reads low, it cannot rule radon out, so follow it with a long-term test of at least three months. Health Canada recommends basing a decision on a test of at least 91 days.
Health Canada: “The 200 Bq/m³ guideline applies to your average annual radon level, not short-term measurements.” (guide for radon measurements in homes)
Are Free Radon Test Kits Worth It?
Yes, as a first look: the free detector from your library is a good place to start. Be careful with a free test from a company that also sells radon systems. A test of only a few days, or a detector in the wrong spot, like right beside a sump, can show a problem a proper test would not.
Shuswap Homes and What They Mean for Radon
Lake Homes and Cabins
Many homes around the lake are cottages and second homes. On census day in 2021, about half the homes in the North Shuswap and about 1 in 3 in Sicamous had no one living in them full time (Statistics Canada). If your place sits empty part of the year, test it during the months you live in it. Radon matters while you're in the house, and a lived-in house, with doors opening and the furnace and fans running, reads differently from one that sits closed up.
Acreages and Wells
A lot of the Shuswap is rural. Salmon Arm's city water covers less than half of the city's land (2025 water report), and there are about 1,600 registered domestic wells around Salmon Arm and the North and South Shuswap (BC well registry). A 2024 national study led by the University of Calgary found rural homes had higher radon on average than homes in cities, and linked much of the difference to drilled wells nearby. If you live outside town, don't assume your home is lower. Test it.
Older Homes and Additions
More than 8 in 10 Salmon Arm homes were built before 2011, well before the BC Building Code's radon rules came in at the end of 2012 (Statistics Canada, 2021 census). Out here, people more often add on than rebuild, so an addition may sit on its own crawlspace, slab or basement. When a home has more than one section, we often suggest spot testing first: a short test in each part of the house for two or three days, repeated a couple of times, to find which part brings in the most radon.
Crawlspaces
Crawlspaces are common here, often beside a basement. Many of our Shuswap jobs include crawlspace encapsulation, where the crawlspace floor is sealed under a heavy membrane and the radon below it is drawn outside.
Wood Fireplaces
Wood heat is common in the Interior: nearly 1 in 4 households in the Thompson Okanagan burn wood, and about half of those use a wood fireplace (BC Lung Foundation, 2024). A fire sends warm air up the chimney, and the pressure change it causes can draw more radon in from the soil (Health Canada). It doesn't change whether we can fix it: we design every system for the way pressure in your home changes, fire or no fire. If you're curious, a monitor with hourly or faster readings, like an Ecosense or Aranet, can show the difference between evenings with the fire going and evenings without. It's interesting to see but not needed: for your radon level, the daily readings and long-term average of a monitor like the Airthings Corentium Home are what matter.
Fans Go Inside, Even Here
Canada's radon mitigation standard allows a radon fan outdoors only where winters are mild: 3,999 heating degree days or fewer. Heating degree days add up how far each day's average temperature falls below 18°C over a year, so the lower the number, the milder the winter. Only a few parts of Canada are that mild, and Salmon Arm, at 3,650, is one of them (CAN/CGSB-149.12-2024; City of Salmon Arm climate data).
We still recommend the fan indoors or in a heated garage: it lasts longer, it's quieter, and it looks better. Health Canada notes that a fan in a cold space can collect condensation and ice, which can damage it. We only put a fan outside when a home really needs it.
What's Under the Slab, and Why It Matters
The material under your basement floor, sometimes called fill or backfill, is whatever the builder used, from clean, coarse gravel to sand, dirt or clay. A radon system draws air from under the whole floor. In clean gravel, the gaps between the stones let air move freely, so one system can reach all of it. Air moves much less easily through sand, dirt or clay, so a home on dense ground can need more than one suction point, or sometimes a stronger fan. That is why we run a pressure field test before deciding where the system goes.
What We Find in the Shuswap
In most Shuswap homes we have worked on, the floor sits on dirt or clay. Clean gravel alone turned up in only a few, mostly newer homes. Homes built here since the end of 2012 should have a gravel layer under the floor (see the code timeline below), though it was not always done right.
How It Works
1
Test Your Home
Use a long-term test kit or a digital monitor, and test for at least three months. More on radon testing
2
Read Your Results
Not sure what your number means? Call or text us. We'll explain what it means for your home, whatever the result.
3
High Result? Get a Free Quote
Over 200 Bq/m³, or higher than you are comfortable with? Call or text 236-300-7223 or request a free quote online.
4
We Fix It, Guaranteed
Two lab tests after the install show you the result, and the lab sends it straight to you. Your quote explains how our guarantee works for your home.
Radon Mitigation Cost and Grants
A radon system costs less than installing air conditioning.
We've quoted thousands of homes, so a few details about yours are usually enough for an accurate quote, often over the phone.
What Changes the Price
- Your foundation: poured concrete, concrete block or wood.
- Your footprint: the part of the house that sits on the ground, not the total square footage.
- Additions, and any crawlspace with a dirt or gravel floor.
- Your neighbourhood. In most areas we work in, we already know whether the ground under the floor is gravel, dirt or clay, and how dense it is. Ask us about yours.
- A sump pit, which we seal airtight. We see far fewer of them around here than in many other places.
- Whether the basement is finished.
Some things change the work but rarely the price: with in-floor heat we thermal-scan the slab before we drill, with a furnace or other fans we check how they change the pressure in your home, and an HRV may need balancing afterward.
Questions about your home? Call or text 236-300-7223 or contact us.
At the time of writing (October 2026), there is no BC, regional or city grant for radon mitigation. Anything we missed? Let us know. For everything else, see grants and other help paying for radon mitigation.
The Lungs Matter Grant
The Canadian Lung Association's Lungs Matter program can put up to $1,500 toward mitigation. You may qualify if:
- Your household has a lung cancer diagnosis or a low to moderate income (the BC income limit is on their page).
- You have a long-term test of at least 90 days, using a C-NRPP listed device, showing more than 200 Bq/m³.
- You have a quote from a C-NRPP certified mitigation professional. We can provide one.
- You apply before the work is done. Funding is limited, so apply early.
Questions about your home? Talk to a radon expert.
Radon Guidelines and Building Codes in BC
Health Canada. The Canadian guideline is 200 Bq/m³. If a long-term test shows your home is above it, Health Canada says to fix it within a year, and sooner if the level is higher (Health Canada's guide for homes). No level of radon is considered safe, so lower is always better.
The national standard. The standard for fixing radon in existing homes is CAN/CGSB-149.12-2024, Radon Mitigation Options for Existing Buildings. We install every system to it.
New homes in Salmon Arm. The BC Building Code has added radon rules in three steps, shown in the timeline.
The code has never required a fan, so a newer home still needs a test. If your home has a builder's rough-in or passive radon pipe, we always test it before using it, because a pipe that is clogged or crushed below the slab may not work. When it passes the pressure field test, it can be activated as part of your system.
December 2012
New Salmon Arm homes need a radon rough-in: a layer of clean, coarse gravel under the floor (typically at least 100 mm, often called radon rock) and a radon pipe, capped inside (BC Building Code 2012).
December 2014
The pipe has to run through the house to the outside, which makes it a passive stack (BC government).
Salmon Arm Radon Questions
I Got a High Reading on a Library Radon Detector. What Should I Do?
Call us with the number and how many days it ran. Depending on both, it can be enough to go ahead, or we may suggest a long-term test first. If it read low, follow it with a long-term test of at least three months, because a short test cannot rule radon out.
Is Radon a Problem in Salmon Arm?
It can be. In the 2024 Cross-Canada Survey of Radon, about 1 in 7 Salmon Arm homes and about 1 in 3 across the Columbia-Shuswap region were at or above Health Canada's guideline of 200 Bq/m³. Your home could be well above or well below that. A long-term test is the only way to know.
Is There a Safe Radon Level?
No level of radon is considered risk free. Health Canada's guideline is 200 Bq/m³: above it, lower your level within a year, and sooner the higher it is. Health Canada also says 200 is not a stopping point if your home can reasonably go lower. See What Your Radon Level Means above.
My New Home Has a Radon Rough-In. Am I Covered?
Not necessarily. The code requires the pipe but has never required a fan, so test the house first. If the result is high, we test the pipe before using it.
Can I Borrow a Radon Detector in the Shuswap?
Yes. Libraries across the Shuswap lend a digital radon detector free with a library card, from about October to March, and Chase residents can borrow one through the Thompson-Nicola Regional Library. If it reads high, call us. If it reads low, follow it with a long-term test.
I Have a Cabin I Use in the Summer. When Should I Test?
Test during the months you live there, not over a winter when it's shut. Libraries only lend detectors in the colder months, so a long-term kit is the easier option for a summer place.
Do You Work in Blind Bay, Sorrento and Sicamous?
Yes, along with Tappen, Enderby and the communities around them. If your town is not on the list below, give us a call.
How Much Does Radon Mitigation Cost in Salmon Arm?
A radon system costs less than installing air conditioning. The price depends on your home (see What Changes the Price above), and with a few details we can usually quote it on the same call.
What Happens on Install Day?
Most installs take one day. The work happens in the basement or crawlspace, so we don't need the run of the whole house. We drill with Hilti dust extractors fitted with HEPA filters, made for drilling and coring concrete, not shop vacs, so the dust is caught as we go. There is some noise while we drill through the concrete, but it comes in short bursts, and most people upstairs carry on with their day.
Why Doesn't RadonCare Offer Free Radon Tests?
Because we want the test done right. A proper test runs for at least three months in the lowest lived-in level of your home, and we only recommend a system when a proper test shows your home needs one. For a free first look, borrow a detector from your library, then follow up with a long-term test.
Are There Grants for Radon Mitigation in BC?
The main one is the Canadian Lung Association's Lungs Matter grant, for households with a lung cancer diagnosis or a low to moderate income. You have to apply before the work is done. As of October 2026 there is no BC, regional or city grant; our help paying page has the details.
Areas We Serve Around Salmon Arm
We work in Salmon Arm (including Canoe), Blind Bay, Sorrento, Tappen, Sicamous, Malakwa, Enderby, Silver Creek and Chase.
Outside This Map? We Work Across the BC Interior and Alberta.
Our crews also work in Vernon, Kelowna, Kamloops, Revelstoke and across Alberta. Not sure about your town? Call or text 236-300-7223.
Radon in the Local News
The Tyee, January 9, 2026Homeowners Left on Their Own to Deal with Deadly GasThe Tyee interviewed one of RadonCare's founders for this story on radon in BC, and one of the homes in it, near Vernon, is one of ours.
Salmon Arm Observer, October 29, 2025'Knowledge will save lives,' says B.C. woman as fall radon campaign set to roll out
Salmon Arm Observer, November 14, 2019Radon levels in new Salmon Arm home a concern
Salmon Arm Observer, March 15, 2019Schools to be tested for radon gas
Get a Free Quote or Ask a Question
Fill out the form and a radon expert will get in touch to answer your questions. Prefer to talk? Call or text 236-300-7223.
About RadonCare
We've lowered the radon in every building we've ever worked on: more than 3,000 homes across Alberta and British Columbia, plus schools, apartment buildings and government buildings. We started out in heating and ventilation, so our team of C-NRPP certified professionals designs every system from how air actually moves through your house, and we aim for the lowest level your home can reasonably reach, not just under the guideline. From your first test to a system built for your home, the results are guaranteed. RadonCare is a five-time Consumer Choice Award winner, and we're involved in Canada's radon industry, with seats on the CARST board of directors and the C-NRPP advisory board.
Updated October 2026