The home jobs that get done are the ones that make noise. A dripping faucet gets fixed by Friday, and a gas with no smell, no color and no sound can go untested for years.
Below: the radon test, a desk that runs on one cable, how often to clean a humidifier, the weekend to plant spring bulbs, a roll of painter's tape, and a free desk check for the kitchen-table office.
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How to Test Your Home for Radon
Image: The Home Wire
Radon is a radioactive gas that seeps into houses from the soil through cracks and gaps in the foundation. You can't see it, smell it or taste it, so a test is the only way to know.
Per EPA's Citizen's Guide to Radon, radon is estimated to cause about 21,000 lung cancer deaths a year in the U.S., and the Surgeon General calls it the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. EPA also estimates that nearly 1 in 15 U.S. homes has an elevated level, and any home can have it.
EPA and the Surgeon General recommend testing every home below the third floor.
TLDR: radon is measured in picocuries per liter, written pCi/L. EPA says to fix a home at 4 pCi/L or higher. The average U.S. indoor level is about 1.3.
The steps for a short-term test:
Get a short-term kit. The National Radon Program Services, a Kansas State University program run with EPA, sells a 2 to 4 day kit for $20, lab fee included (plus a $10 state fee in New Jersey). It typically arrives one to two weeks after it ships, so order it this weekend.
Pick the spot. Use the lowest level of the home that you live on, in a room you use, not the kitchen or bathroom. Set the kit at least 20 inches off the floor, away from drafts, heat, humidity and outside walls.
Close up the house. Keep windows and outside doors shut as much as you can for the whole test. For a 2 or 3 day test, shut them at least 12 hours before it starts.
Leave the kit alone for as long as the package says.
Mail it right away. Reseal the package and send it to the lab named on it.
Read the number. At 4 pCi/L or higher, take a follow-up test to be sure. If it holds, EPA says to fix the home, and some radon reduction systems can cut levels by up to 99%.
EPA says no level of radon is entirely safe, so retest if you start living on a lower level, like a finished basement.
Renting? The same advice applies below the third floor. Tell your landlord you're testing, and ask whether the building has ever been tested. Early fall suits the job, since the house is about to be shut up for months.
A One-Cable Desk for a Room You Also Live In
A desk in a bedroom or living room has one big problem, and it's the cords. They're what keeps the room looking like an office long after the workday ends.
The one we'd point you to is the Secretlab MAGNUS Pro, at $948 for the 1.5 m (59 inch) size. Secretlab calls it the world's first sit-stand desk that powers your setup with a single cable.
Secretlab says a cable runs hidden inside one leg to an outlet at the top, so you plug a power strip into the desk and only one cord goes to the wall. A tray the length of the desk hides the rest of the cords, and the desk is motorized to move between sitting and standing.
If the chair needs to change too, Secretlab pairs the desk with the ATLAS, at $699 in the Dune fabric, Regular size. Secretlab lists it as an ergonomic task chair in SoftWeave Plus fabric, with a backrest that runs the full height of your back and an adjustable seat depth.
We haven't set up either one ourselves. The descriptions are Secretlab's, and both prices come from its listings as of October 9.
The catch is the price. The pair comes to $1,647 before any add-ons, and a 59 inch desk takes up a lot of wall, so measure first. The painter's tape trick below works for that, and the desk check at the bottom of this email is free.
We wrote up the full small-room plan, with the cable routing step by step, on the site: A Home Office Setup for a Room You Also Live In.
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How Often Your Humidifier Needs Cleaning
Image: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
The humidifier in the hall closet is about to go back to work. Per EPA, the tank is the problem. Standing water grows bacteria and mold, and ultrasonic and cool-mist models can blow minerals and microorganisms into the air you breathe.
Start the season with a clean one, if it's a portable model:
Unplug it.
Empty the tank.
Scrub the tank with a brush, and take off any scale, deposits or film on the sides and inner surfaces.
Disinfect every part that touches water. If the manual doesn't say how, EPA suggests a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution.
Rinse the tank with several changes of tap water, so no cleaner ends up in the air.
Wipe everything dry.
Refill it with low-mineral water, like bottled distilled.
After that, the routine is short. Empty the tank, wipe it dry and refill it every day, and clean it every third day, per EPA.
Run it only when the room is dry enough to need it, and stop and call a doctor if breathing symptoms seem to follow the humidifier. Scale builds up faster with tap water, which is the other reason EPA points you to distilled.
A console or furnace-mounted humidifier follows its own manual instead.
The Weekend to Plant Spring Bulbs
Tulips and daffodils that bloom in April get planted this fall. Per the Old Farmer's Almanac, the time is when the soil drops below 60 F, usually about six weeks before your first hard frost.
That's September or October up north and October or November in the South. If you're not sure, plant by Halloween. It's a one-afternoon job, and then the bulbs do the rest.
Pick a sunny spot with soil that drains. Bulbs that sit in soggy soil rot, so skip the corner that stays wet after rain.
Mix early, mid and late bloomers if you want color through the whole spring.
Dig each hole about three times as deep as the bulb is wide.
Set each bulb in pointy side up.
Protect them if you have squirrels, deer or voles. Lay wire cages over the bed, or plant daffodils, which the almanac lists as pest-resistant.
Mulch the bed to protect the bulbs from freeze-thaw heaving.
In the warmer South, tulips and daffodils may not bloom without a cold spell. The almanac says they need 12 to 16 weeks of cold, so pre-chill them in a ventilated bag at the bottom of the fridge, at 40 to 50 F, before you plant.
Steal This: Tape It Out Before You Buy
Before you buy anything big for a small room, put it on the floor in painter's tape. A product photo shows the piece in a huge, empty room. The tape shows it in yours.
Get the real width and depth from the listing, and the height for anything tall.
Tape the outline on the floor.
Add lines for whatever has to swing or slide, like a door, a drawer or a chair pushed back from a desk.
Mark any outlet or vent the piece would block.
If it's tall, stack a few boxes to the same height next to the tape.
Live with it for a day. Walk the routes you take, bed to door, door to window, closet to hall, and the one you take in the dark.
Check the way in. Measure the doorways, stairwells and hallway turns the piece has to get through before it ever reaches the room.
Test the tape on a hidden corner first, since not every floor finish likes it. It works for a sofa, a bed, a rug or a 59 inch desk. If a route gets tight, you've learned that for the price of a roll of tape.
A Free Desk Check for the Kitchen-Table Office
If your office is the kitchen table, this takes three minutes and costs nothing. OSHA's computer workstation guide says there's no single posture that fits everyone, and lists what to aim for. Check it against how you sit right now, not how you meant to sit:
Top of the screen at or just below eye level. A laptop sits too low, so prop it on a stack of books and use a separate keyboard and mouse, which lets your hands stay low while the screen goes up.
Head and neck balanced and in line with your torso, with your shoulders relaxed.
Elbows close to your body and supported, with your wrists in line with your forearms.
Room for the keyboard and mouse. Clear enough table that your arms aren't stretched out or tucked in.
Lower back supported. A dining chair has none, so a small rolled towel behind the hollow of your back is a free stand-in.
Feet flat on the floor. If the chair is too high, a box or a few books under your feet fixes it.
Do it once at the table you actually use, with the chair you actually sit in, then adjust whatever nags.
One quick tap
Which should we cover next?
That's Friday: the radon test, a one-cable desk, the humidifier's cleaning schedule, the weekend for spring bulbs, a roll of tape and a free desk check.
If you only get to one thing this weekend, order the radon kit.
Forward this to whoever in your house looks after the basement.
See you Monday.
The Home Wire
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