Image: BC Air Radon Testing and Mitigation / Chilliwack commercial lender Lisa Klee is pictured in conjunction with her business, BC Air Radon Testing and Mitigation. Klee became passionate about radon mitigation after a family member passed due to a long battle with cancer. Radon levels in a home are a major cause of lung cancer.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Radon business

Losing a loved one motivated Chilliwack commercial lender to start a radon mitigation business

Jan 13, 2025 | 7:02 AM

CHILLIWACK — With a background in mortgage brokerage, financial planning and investment advising, Chilliwack-area resident Lisa Klee embodies the type of person that would start her own business on top of her regular job as a commercial lender.

The impetus behind her drive to start a radon detection and mitigation business, however, was underscored by difficult and painful circumstances. Klee says there have been multiple diagnoses of cancer over the past decade within her family, including one family member who died a slow but painful death in recent years. The experience is still fresh in her mind.

“I lost a family member two years ago and it was the most helpless experience watching them die and not be able to do anything to help,” Klee said. Speaking of her experience in residential lending, Klee said, “We are finding that people have so many questions and seem to be avoiding asking them with most having the fear that their house will be labelled once they find out and it will negatively impact them somehow.”

The emergence of radon exposure and its health impacts may not seem like a clear and present danger to the typical homeowner or residential tenant in Chilliwack, but that perception is changing.

During a public information and testing campaign commissioned by the City of Chilliwack in 2023, nearly five per cent of Chilliwack homes tested had high radon levels above the 200 becquerels per cubic metre. That equates to thousands of homes potentially in Chilliwack with radioactive gas levels of concern.

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That number has since grown to six per cent of Chilliwack homes whose radon levels are above the acceptable threshold.

The presence of radon was much higher in Cultus Lake. According to statistics provided by radon advocate and Chilliwack resident Jill Hall, a staggering 27 per cent of Cultus Lake-area homes tested above Health Canada’s guideline of 200 becquerels per cubic metre.

Radon levels can vary between neighbouring houses, and the only way to know your home’s radon level is to test. High levels of radon gas levels are best addressed by installing a radon mitigation system, one that draws and air and radon up from beneath the foundation and discharges the radon to the outdoors where it disperses the radon to low levels. Systems like these reduce radon by preventing it from entering a home.

When the commercial lending market was a bit slower in 2023, Klee says she was not as busy doing mortgages and was introduced to radon and the high risks of lung cancer if exposed to it over time.

“I realized this is something we can do to prevent people getting it or at the very least lessen the chances,” Klee said. “I studied for months and got my radon measurement and then mitigation certification. I genuinely want to help people and make sure their homes are safe and they are educated as to the risks involved, the science and the why now behind it so they don’t think it is a theory. I can admit, I wondered at first as well but once I understood it, I realized this is something that we can do to stop the risk of getting cancer.”

Her company, BC Air Radon Testing and Mitigation based in Chilliwack, continues to offer free testing in Garrison, the Lindys Crossing neighbourhood just south of Keith Wilson Road, and Cultus Lake.

“We would love to explain what radon is, the risks and how to fix it so that hopefully we can put more facts in front of people instead of assumptions,” Klee said.