Edmonton Radon Map: Every Home Health Canada Tested, and What It Read

139 homes in and around Edmonton were measured for radon in the two federal surveys. Every one of them is a dot on this map, with the reading it gave and the number of homes behind every district figure.

Built from Health Canada's published measurements under the Open Government Licence. We do not sell radon testing or mitigation, so nothing here is bent toward a sale.

Edmonton Reads Lower than Calgary, and We Are Going to Say So

The easy version of this page would be alarming. The data does not support it.

About one Edmonton home in fifteen tested at or above the Canadian action level. In Calgary it is closer to one in seven. On the same two surveys, using the same method, Edmonton's median reading is 94 against Calgary's 101, and Edmonton's share above 200 is 6.7% against Calgary's 14.4%.

That is a real difference and it is worth knowing. It is also not permission to skip a test, for one specific reason: the variation between individual houses on the same street is far bigger than the variation between the two cities. The highest reading in this Edmonton sample is 386 Bq/m³, nearly double the action level, and it sits in a district whose median is well under it. A city average tells you about a city. It tells you nothing whatsoever about your own basement.

The Number Changes Depending on Whose Limit You Use

Canada acts at 200 Bq/m³. The United States EPA acts at about 148. The World Health Organization sets a reference level of 100. Applied to the same 139 homes:

Same houses, same measurements. Why the three numbers differ, and which one to use.

The Map: Where Health Canada Measured, and What Each Home Read

under 100100 to 147148 to 199200 and overdistrict never tested

Each dot is one long-term measurement. Dot positions inside a district are illustrative, not addresses — the survey records only the postal district, never a street. Tap a dot for its reading, or a district for its count and median. Shaded districts with a dashed edge had no homes tested in either survey, which means unknown, not safe. Pooled from Health Canada's Radon and Thoron survey and the Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes.

By Postal District, with the Sample Sizes Shown

16 districts have never been tested in either survey and are shaded on the map: T4X, T5B, T5J, T5P, T5S, T5V, T5W, T6G, T6N, T6S, T7Y, T7Z, T8B, T8C, T8H, T9E. That includes the university area and much of the city centre. Nobody knows what those houses read, including us.

The Surrounding Towns, and Why They Say Almost Nothing Yet

Sherwood Park, St Albert, Spruce Grove, Fort Saskatchewan and Morinville between them contribute 19 measurements. None of them reached the action level.

Do not read anything into this. Two to six houses per town is not a sample, it is an anecdote. The absence of a high reading here is much more likely to mean nobody measured the house that has one than that no such house exists. Beaumont, Leduc and Stony Plain have no published measurements at all.

This matters more than it looks, because the 2024 national survey found the opposite pattern south of Calgary: High River, Okotoks and Strathmore are named as places where a quarter to a half of homes sit at or above the guideline. Rural and small-town Alberta is not reliably safer than the cities. Around Edmonton, we simply have not measured enough to know.

Important: The Picture Has Changed Since These Surveys

The measurements mapped above were taken between 2009 and 2012. In October 2024 the Evict Radon National Study at the University of Calgary, with the BC Centre for Disease Control and Health Canada, published the Cross-Canada Survey of Radon, drawing on more than thirty thousand tests taken between 2009 and 2024. It found that 17.8% of people in Canada now live at or above 200 Bq/m³, against 6.9% in the older work, and a further 24.2% between 100 and 199.

Newer housing is part of that. Tighter, better-sealed homes exchange less air with the outside, and radon that would once have leaked away accumulates instead. So an Edmonton figure built on 2009 to 2012 measurements should be read as a floor rather than a current reading.

If You Are Buying or Selling in Edmonton

Alberta has required a radon rough-in in new homes since 1 November 2015, which splits the housing stock in two: on a newer house mitigation is a connection, on an older one it is a full installation. Same reading, different job, and the build year is on the listing. What the November 2015 line means for a sale.

Also: every C-NRPP certified radon company in the Edmonton area, sorted by what they actually do, how to test properly, and the same map for Calgary.

Sources and method. Radon measurements: Health Canada, Radon and Thoron Data From Canadian Homes (Edmonton CMA) pooled with the Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes 2009-2011, both under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Boundaries: Statistics Canada 2021 cartographic forward sortation area file, same licence. Percentages are calculated from the individual measurements shown, not quoted from a summary. All 139 measurements with a recorded district are plotted. 2024 figures: Cross-Canada Survey of Radon, Evict Radon National Study, University of Calgary, October 2024.