Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are a must for your home but radon should also be on your radar.

Radon is a gas that can cause cancer. Tuesday we told you how it can get in your home.

Now, we're showing you how to test for it and what to do if you've got it!

Hitting the house lottery is how my wife and I would describe our situation in sliding into our home. Before moving in or in our case afterwards, a radon test was needed.

"Federal guidelines is 4.0 so basicall, we're trying to keep people down from 4.0."

Robert Lewis of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection agreed to hustle over from Harrisburg to help us out.

"The average in the state is about 7," Lewis said.

The numbers represent piocuries per liter or PCI's. The gas has been shown to cause cancer: 21,000 cases nationwide per year. About 1,500 deaths per year in Pennsylvania are attributed to radon.

So having your home checked is a message Lewis stresses.

Home testing kits can be picked up at hardware stores for under $50. Hiring a pro could more than double the price but you get the results in 48 hours as opposed to a week.

"The radon defuses in here. There is a white substance called zinc sulfite, actually gives off emissions that the instrument records," Lewis went on to say as he showed us the testing kit.

For us Lewis laid down a continuous monitor, which is also used in real estate transactions.

For home kits one stays in the basement where levels are the highest. The second goes upstairs to measure the levels as the gas rises. The radon readers are kept in place for 48 hours.

Lewis says for an accurate reading you'll need to keep the area sealed. The kits are then packed and shipped to testing labs.

"If my house has it, does that mean my neighbor has it?" I asked Lewis.

No, he said. It's a crap shoot. Just depends on where your house is. Lewis says homes in the Lehigh Valley are ripe with radon. He says levels in our area are some of the highest in the state because of high levels of uranium in the local soil.

My final results are above 90. Lewis says if you can't remediate right away, cracking windows does help.

But removing radon is really your safest option.