7 ms·

Every time you look up something related to Radon, it's always cited as "the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking" I wonder if that's really true.

Every time you look up something related to Radon, it's always cited as "the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking" I wonder if that's really true. Radon is a big deal where I live. Most homes have a radon mitigation system which is a 20-watt fan that goes over your sump pump hole, and runs continuously to a vent on the roof.

abakker 1y ago
I bought an Airthings radon monitor because of that stat, and one thing that I have learned is that those mitigation systems do not necessarily work. I have a system that works, but initially, even though my house had a system, it did not reliably keep the radon levels below the federal action level. Barometric pressure, temperature, and HVAC all seem to have some bearing - tightening the house for air leaks actually did a lot of good in keeping levels low. Also, sump pump failures or ground water levels can "push" radon into the house. I dug a deeper sump pit and also put a secondary radon fan to pull air out of my sub-foundation drain pipes to ensure the air below the house is cycled. Still, in Boulder County, my house will fail its radon test after a 2 hour power outage. I am an evangelist for continuous radon monitoring, alerts and tests.
- nancyminusone 1y ago
  I bought one of those because I have a couple radium clocks and a nice sample of uraninite, which is a tiny collection compared to the real enthusiasts but probably more radioactive stuff than the average person has. Radon is in the decay chain. I've never seen above 0.7pC/L which is pretty good, although I don't know what proportion of the activity that is there is natural, or how much more it would be without the fan. I'm not sure what the natural radon levels even are in my area, I think the radon fan is just part of code here.
- colordrops 1y ago
  My house is a raised foundation and they covered all the ground underneath with plastic and put perforated pipes underneath that pull the air out. Radon went down 10x. The company has a 5 year guarantee.
- simonsarris 1y ago
  > tightening the house for air leaks actually did a lot of good in keeping levels low Wait, really? Intuitively I would expect the opposite, that a draftier house is better for radon levels indoors
  - NegativeLatency 1y ago
    There's probably a tipping point between the stack effect (hot air rising and pulling on the radon) and drafts bringing in fresh air diluting the radon.
  - zdragnar 1y ago
    A better seal maintains the pressure in the house better. Drafts form either from temperature differential and wind outside pushing in. Radon coming up from the ground is still heavier than air, so it won't mix in very well if it can't displace anything. It's not a perfect solution, as air movement from circulation will help it mix in, but a good envelope will help a mitigation system out quite a bit.
  - AngryData 1y ago
    If too much air can leak in from too many places your exhaust fan won't be able to keep up and maintain a pressure differential across the whole area and fully cycle through the air volume. Instead of the air mass as a whole flowing towards the exhaust you will instead get mixing of inside and outside air and then pulling of a fraction of that. Ultimately failing to properly cycle the contaminated air and also spending a lot of energy on exhausting what was previously clean exterior air. With it more sealed so you can get a decent static pressure it is like flushing a clean fluid through a pipe and only really needs a little more than the pipe's volume of fluid to clear it, with it poorly sealed it is more like scooping one cup of water out of a contaminated bucket, then pouring a clean cup of water back in and letting it mix before repeating the process, with the hopeful goal of eventually having an uncontaminated bucket of clean water. It would eventually be clean enough sure, but you might have to go through 1000x the fluid volume to get to a clean enough point. Technically you could just increase your exhaust fan's power until it creates decent static pressure in even a leaky home, but you would also be exhausting a lot of the energy you put into your climate control system.
colordrops 1y ago
I bought a house in the hills of Los Angeles and we tested for radon. Turned out it was very high, and LA is one of the few places in California that has high radon. We got it mitigated, and it wasn't that expensive. I talked to neighbors and real estate agents, and no one wanted to know anything about it. I was shocked. Everyone is pulling the wool over their own eyes here.
- Spooky23 1y ago
  It’s knowledge that can only hurt you if you’re selling houses. Just like lead paint - it’s smart to be dumb.
  - thfuran 1y ago
    If ignorance gives you cancer while you live there, maintaining it in the hopes of avoiding disclose requirements in the future is both dumb and evil.
    - lazide 1y ago
      And certainly people would not be dumb and evil?
      - thfuran 1y ago
        I believe I have a significant body of counterevidence.
    - Spooky23 1y ago
      Nothing reveals the darkness in people's soul more than real estate.
- severino 1y ago
  > We got it mitigated, and it wasn't that expensive What's the process, usually, adding some special ventilation system to the house?
ellisv 1y ago
An estimated 38% of homes in my county have elevated radon levels. We tested for radon when we bought our house and found the levels to be very high. Fortunately the builders had installed a passive mitigation system so all we had to do was install a fan.
prawn 1y ago
I have never heard of radon as a domestic health concern (40+, have owned multiple houses). Does this vary by country or relate to mitigation industries in a locale?
- WorkerBee28474 1y ago
  It varies by the amount of uranium underneath you. So yes, by country/state/province/etc.
  - prawn 1y ago
    Australia has the largest uranium reserves, but I've never heard radon mentioned here as a concern, so I assume it just comes down to the reserves being very specifically located.
    - astura 1y ago
      I guess it's not much of a concern in Australia, I guess. https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation-sources/more-radiation-sources/radon-map https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation... >In 1990, ARPANSA conducted a nationwide survey of more than 3300 Australian homes to determine the radiation dose to the Australian population from exposure to natural background radiation, including radon. Based on this survey, the average concentration of radon in Australian homes is about 10 Bq m⁻³. This is less than in many other countries and compares to a global average indoor value of 40 Bq m⁻³. Average radon levels in Australian homes are only a little larger than the radon levels in outside air and are of minimal concern to health.
    - WorkerBee28474 1y ago
      It's a concern for miners, but not normal homes. Also radon often concentrates in basements, and you don't have those.
  - astura 1y ago
    I heard that even houses next door to each other can have different amounts of radon.
mppm 1y ago
> Every time you look up something related to Radon, it's always cited as "the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking" > I wonder if that's really true. That claim is in fact based on extremely poor research methodology. It is made by combining the linear no-threshold model of radiation damage (which contradicts everything we know about cellular repair and hormesis) with evidence from "case-control studies", a kind of retroactive hand-waving that has nothing whatsoever to do with a "controlled trial", despite the name.

abakker 1y ago

I bought an Airthings radon monitor because of that stat, and one thing that I have learned is that those mitigation systems do not necessarily work. I have a system that works, but initially, even though my house had a system, it did not reliably keep the radon levels below the federal action level. Barometric pressure, temperature, and HVAC all seem to have some bearing - tightening the house for air leaks actually did a lot of good in keeping levels low. Also, sump pump failures or ground water levels can "push" radon into the house. I dug a deeper sump pit and also put a secondary radon fan to pull air out of my sub-foundation drain pipes to ensure the air below the house is cycled. Still, in Boulder County, my house will fail its radon test after a 2 hour power outage. I am an evangelist for continuous radon monitoring, alerts and tests.

nancyminusone 1y ago
I bought one of those because I have a couple radium clocks and a nice sample of uraninite, which is a tiny collection compared to the real enthusiasts but probably more radioactive stuff than the average person has. Radon is in the decay chain. I've never seen above 0.7pC/L which is pretty good, although I don't know what proportion of the activity that is there is natural, or how much more it would be without the fan. I'm not sure what the natural radon levels even are in my area, I think the radon fan is just part of code here.
colordrops 1y ago
My house is a raised foundation and they covered all the ground underneath with plastic and put perforated pipes underneath that pull the air out. Radon went down 10x. The company has a 5 year guarantee.
simonsarris 1y ago
> tightening the house for air leaks actually did a lot of good in keeping levels low Wait, really? Intuitively I would expect the opposite, that a draftier house is better for radon levels indoors
- NegativeLatency 1y ago
  There's probably a tipping point between the stack effect (hot air rising and pulling on the radon) and drafts bringing in fresh air diluting the radon.
- zdragnar 1y ago
  A better seal maintains the pressure in the house better. Drafts form either from temperature differential and wind outside pushing in. Radon coming up from the ground is still heavier than air, so it won't mix in very well if it can't displace anything. It's not a perfect solution, as air movement from circulation will help it mix in, but a good envelope will help a mitigation system out quite a bit.
- AngryData 1y ago
  If too much air can leak in from too many places your exhaust fan won't be able to keep up and maintain a pressure differential across the whole area and fully cycle through the air volume. Instead of the air mass as a whole flowing towards the exhaust you will instead get mixing of inside and outside air and then pulling of a fraction of that. Ultimately failing to properly cycle the contaminated air and also spending a lot of energy on exhausting what was previously clean exterior air. With it more sealed so you can get a decent static pressure it is like flushing a clean fluid through a pipe and only really needs a little more than the pipe's volume of fluid to clear it, with it poorly sealed it is more like scooping one cup of water out of a contaminated bucket, then pouring a clean cup of water back in and letting it mix before repeating the process, with the hopeful goal of eventually having an uncontaminated bucket of clean water. It would eventually be clean enough sure, but you might have to go through 1000x the fluid volume to get to a clean enough point. Technically you could just increase your exhaust fan's power until it creates decent static pressure in even a leaky home, but you would also be exhausting a lot of the energy you put into your climate control system.

colordrops 1y ago

I bought a house in the hills of Los Angeles and we tested for radon. Turned out it was very high, and LA is one of the few places in California that has high radon. We got it mitigated, and it wasn't that expensive. I talked to neighbors and real estate agents, and no one wanted to know anything about it. I was shocked. Everyone is pulling the wool over their own eyes here.

Spooky23 1y ago
It’s knowledge that can only hurt you if you’re selling houses. Just like lead paint - it’s smart to be dumb.
- thfuran 1y ago
  If ignorance gives you cancer while you live there, maintaining it in the hopes of avoiding disclose requirements in the future is both dumb and evil.
  - lazide 1y ago
    And certainly people would not be dumb and evil?
    - thfuran 1y ago
      I believe I have a significant body of counterevidence.
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    Nothing reveals the darkness in people's soul more than real estate.
severino 1y ago
> We got it mitigated, and it wasn't that expensive What's the process, usually, adding some special ventilation system to the house?

ellisv 1y ago

An estimated 38% of homes in my county have elevated radon levels. We tested for radon when we bought our house and found the levels to be very high. Fortunately the builders had installed a passive mitigation system so all we had to do was install a fan.

prawn 1y ago

I have never heard of radon as a domestic health concern (40+, have owned multiple houses). Does this vary by country or relate to mitigation industries in a locale?

WorkerBee28474 1y ago
It varies by the amount of uranium underneath you. So yes, by country/state/province/etc.
- prawn 1y ago
  Australia has the largest uranium reserves, but I've never heard radon mentioned here as a concern, so I assume it just comes down to the reserves being very specifically located.
  - astura 1y ago
    I guess it's not much of a concern in Australia, I guess. https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation-sources/more-radiation-sources/radon-map https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/radiation... >In 1990, ARPANSA conducted a nationwide survey of more than 3300 Australian homes to determine the radiation dose to the Australian population from exposure to natural background radiation, including radon. Based on this survey, the average concentration of radon in Australian homes is about 10 Bq m⁻³. This is less than in many other countries and compares to a global average indoor value of 40 Bq m⁻³. Average radon levels in Australian homes are only a little larger than the radon levels in outside air and are of minimal concern to health.
  - WorkerBee28474 1y ago
    It's a concern for miners, but not normal homes. Also radon often concentrates in basements, and you don't have those.
- astura 1y ago
  I heard that even houses next door to each other can have different amounts of radon.

mppm 1y ago

> Every time you look up something related to Radon, it's always cited as "the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking" > I wonder if that's really true. That claim is in fact based on extremely poor research methodology. It is made by combining the linear no-threshold model of radiation damage (which contradicts everything we know about cellular repair and hormesis) with evidence from "case-control studies", a kind of retroactive hand-waving that has nothing whatsoever to do with a "controlled trial", despite the name.