4 ms·

Do people have basements? Radon?

by theGnuMe 4y ago

castlecrasher2 4y ago
The vast majority of UT houses have basements. Is radon a factor in lung cancer?
- tptacek 4y ago
  Very yes.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Living in a country that has a lot of natural radon in some places, very definitely yes. New houses over here must be built in a way that mitigates radon exposure, unless that particular region is low-risk.
- akerl_ 4y ago
  At risk of going wildly off topic from the post, I’d suggest that for anybody with disposable income, the value proposition of buying some air quality sensors is amazing. I installed some a month or two ago, and they caught alarmingly high radon levels in my basement that I’m now working to address. But also they catch more mundane things, like “oh, I tend to get headaches in the afternoon, which happens to be when the co2 levels are super high in my office”.
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  - za3faran 4y ago
    Which brand of sensors do you recommend?
    - akerl_ 4y ago
      I’ve been happy so far with Airthings. They have a variety of sensors with different price points / features (seems like most except the Mini will do radon), the mobile app is decent, and there’s a HomeAssistant integration for it.
refracture 4y ago
Yes, and radon is a fairly high awareness thing and tests are both readily available and often free. I got it done shortly after moving into my house.
lakhim 4y ago
Map of roughly risk of radon: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/zonemapcolor.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/zo... Given that lung cancer is driven by a) smoking, then b) radon, one would expect some level of correlation here.
- rufus_foreman 4y ago
  That map makes it looks like the borders of Missouri were decided based on radon risk. Which is not what I think actually happened when they drew those borders. So, no, don't believe your map.
  - bxparks 4y ago
    The granularity of the map seems to be at the county level, so I will guess that the EPA did not gather this data by itself, but rather, rely on self-reported data from each county from each state. A county is a political boundary, so the state of Missouri probably had different testing regulations and methodologies than its neighbors like Iowa and Illinois.
    - rufus_foreman 4y ago
      >> so the state of Missouri probably had different testing regulations and methodologies than its neighbors like Iowa and Illinois Then the map doesn't show risk of radon. It's worthless for that purpose. "Different political institutions have different standards for what is a radon risk." It's a map of different political institutions then. That's fine. Just don't try to sell a map of political institutions as a map of radon risk when that is obvious bullshit. I mean it's completely obvious from the boundary. 100% obvious bullshit.
      - theGnuMe 4y ago
        Radon Risk is well established. If it’s higher than a specific limit you need to mitigate. This map just indicates where it is likely to be higher on average based on geology.

Do people have basements? Radon?

castlecrasher2 4y ago

The vast majority of UT houses have basements. Is radon a factor in lung cancer?

tptacek 4y ago
Very yes.
inglor_cz 4y ago
Living in a country that has a lot of natural radon in some places, very definitely yes. New houses over here must be built in a way that mitigates radon exposure, unless that particular region is low-risk.
akerl_ 4y ago
At risk of going wildly off topic from the post, I’d suggest that for anybody with disposable income, the value proposition of buying some air quality sensors is amazing. I installed some a month or two ago, and they caught alarmingly high radon levels in my basement that I’m now working to address. But also they catch more mundane things, like “oh, I tend to get headaches in the afternoon, which happens to be when the co2 levels are super high in my office”.
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- za3faran 4y ago
  Which brand of sensors do you recommend?
  - akerl_ 4y ago
    I’ve been happy so far with Airthings. They have a variety of sensors with different price points / features (seems like most except the Mini will do radon), the mobile app is decent, and there’s a HomeAssistant integration for it.

refracture 4y ago

Yes, and radon is a fairly high awareness thing and tests are both readily available and often free. I got it done shortly after moving into my house.

lakhim 4y ago

Map of roughly risk of radon: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/zonemapcolor.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/zo... Given that lung cancer is driven by a) smoking, then b) radon, one would expect some level of correlation here.

rufus_foreman 4y ago
That map makes it looks like the borders of Missouri were decided based on radon risk. Which is not what I think actually happened when they drew those borders. So, no, don't believe your map.
- bxparks 4y ago
  The granularity of the map seems to be at the county level, so I will guess that the EPA did not gather this data by itself, but rather, rely on self-reported data from each county from each state. A county is a political boundary, so the state of Missouri probably had different testing regulations and methodologies than its neighbors like Iowa and Illinois.
  - rufus_foreman 4y ago
    >> so the state of Missouri probably had different testing regulations and methodologies than its neighbors like Iowa and Illinois Then the map doesn't show risk of radon. It's worthless for that purpose. "Different political institutions have different standards for what is a radon risk." It's a map of different political institutions then. That's fine. Just don't try to sell a map of political institutions as a map of radon risk when that is obvious bullshit. I mean it's completely obvious from the boundary. 100% obvious bullshit.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      Radon Risk is well established. If it’s higher than a specific limit you need to mitigate. This map just indicates where it is likely to be higher on average based on geology.