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The difficult thing for me is that while I believe radon can cause lung cancer, I think products are often sold based on fear. “Second leading cause” doesn’t re
by Waterluvian 1y ago
The difficult thing for me is that while I believe radon can cause lung cancer, I think products are often sold based on fear. “Second leading cause” doesn’t really mean anything in isolation, does it?
What slice of my mortality pie was radon before and after spending $5000? Could I spend $5000 to cut a bigger slice out of it in another way, like eating better or hiring a grizzly bear to make me exercise more often?
I think action is better than decision paralysis, but I wish I could make much more informed decisions.
- irrational 1y ago$5000? I got a bunch of quotes and none came anywhere near that high and I live in a home that made it difficult to install the system (finished basement, large footprint, three stories tall, concrete outer walls (ICF), etc. I think the highest was $3,000 and the lowest $1,600. I ended up installing it myself for about $500 in materials.
- Waterluvian 1y agoIt’ll vary considerably. But I just picked a random round number that doesn’t affect the point I’m sharing.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- zamadatix 1y agoThat's only the initial capex though. $5,000 is a realistic swag for install + lifetime electricity + minor system maintenance.
- bradlys 1y agoThese fans are not using $3000 in electricity over their lifetime.
- zamadatix 1y agoI guess that depends how old you are when you install it and how long you plan to live but ~$7 per month is not at all an unrealistic electricity usage estimate for the system. 7*12*35 = $2,940. Edit: E.g. the numbers from this site suggest, for 15 out of the 16 listed fan models, the lifetime electricity cost is likely to be significantly larger than the install cost unless you are already much older at the time you start using the system or you have extremely cheap electricity (or both) https://www.radonaway.com/radon-fan-operating-cost-calculator https://www.radonaway.com/radon-fan-operating-cost-calculato...
- dgfitz 1y agoThis point always amuses me. Thats like, 1 starbucks coffee a month, or 1 trip to a fast food place a month, or one extra thing at the grocery store a month, or half a movie ticket a month, or half a streaming service a month, or less than half an LLM subscription a month, I could go on for a while. For the cost, preventing cancer seems like it's a wise investment. I say this as a cancer survivor.
- Waterluvian 1y agoBut it doesn’t prevent cancer. It lowers the risk of a specific kind of cancer by some amount. Is it $650 worth? That’s what I’m stuck on. People just go by vibe and say things like “it’s a good investment” but that’s just coming from I don’t know where.
- maxbond 1y agoHow much does it really have to prevent one of the most painful and expensive forms of cancer, not just for you but also your family, to justify $7/mo? Not very much, in my book.
- yunwal 1y agoSame comment as the one above. There are literally infinite things you can do to reduce your risk of mortality. This would have to be among the best options if those things.
- ProAm 1y agoThat is still insanely high. The highest Ive seen for install is $650 but required quite a bit of piping to the exterior.
- irrational 1y agoJust the materials cost was $500. How are they doing labor for $150?
- adamsiem 1y agoAnd heating/cooling the fresh air replacing evacuated air + radon.
- irrational 1y agoThe air is under your slab. How would it be replaced by fresh air inside the house?
- pkaye 1y agoHere is something I found comparing the risk of radon exposure to other risks. Seems like if you don't smoke the risks are much lower. https://www.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon https://www.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon
- aorloff 1y agoI might not be in as tight with the grizzlies, but $5k a year for a personal bear trainer seems a bit low. For a regular brown bear sure, but the grizzlies are expensive
- labster 1y agoYeah but no matter what, you gotta pay for the bear necessities.
- zamadatix 1y agoFor 93% of people the only cost is the $15 test kit to verify "yep, don't need to even think about it". For the other 7% that then need to really do a cost-benefit the data is out there but you do need to go through your specific circumstances to get a meaningful number. The risk levels vary vastly (orders of magnitudes) between both the radon level and your life choices/situation, so it's relatively meaningless to share individual cost-benefit analyses.
- jychang 1y agoYeah, this is the correct heuristic. Spend $15 or $100 for one or two measurements, *then* worry about cost to mitigate.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 1y agoAdvice also applies to mold. A lot of people worry about mold in their house. It's actually quite straightforward to determine if this is actually a problem: Home Depot sells "test kits" for a few bucks that are essentially petri dishes. Buy two of these, put one inside where you are worried and then the other outside and wait 3-4 days. If they look radically different, then send the inside one in for actual analysis, which is an additional ~$40 USD. Then and only then do you need to action and by that point you know exactly what the problem is so you don't have to pay some "expert" to sell you some massively expensive mitigation strategy that you probably don't need.
- pjc50 1y agoIs it common to have an invisible mould problem? Lots of people are in the situation where there is really visible mould but the problem is getting their landlord to fix it, without getting into allegations over drying clothes inside etc.
- jajko 1y agoI would expect that mold can build up ie in ventilation where it remains unseen unless it literally clogs he whole system. You can't see the spores an often there is no strong foul smell.
- ok_computer 1y agoRadon fan drawing from two basement surfaces (concrete slab crawlspace addition and original stone foundation with cement floor): $1,200.00 usd in 2020 with warrantied fan and included confirmation test kit. US mid Atlantic. The prior homeowner thought radon was a scam too. It doesn’t make sense as a scam for a one-time capital and labor purchase.
- necheffa 1y ago> What slice of my mortality pie was radon before and after spending $5000? You'll never know. The same way people in the exclusion zone will never know if their thyroid cancer was always destined to be or if it really was related to the Chernobyl meltdown. But spending (closer to $1000) to mitigate some risk from a known threat vector does seem thrifty.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> But spending (closer to $1000) to mitigate some risk from a known threat vector does seem thrifty. No, there are a lot of known threat vectors.
- furyofantares 1y agoI'm with you on wanting to quantify. https://www.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon https://www.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon Scroll down to "Radon Risk If You Have Never Smoked". Looks pretty worthwhile to take it from "very high" to "almost nil". If "very high" was in the range of the 2nd highest level listed here, that's 2% chance. That's for lifetime exposure but there's also multiple people living in the house. If you DO smoke, the numbers look VERY good for spending some cash to get rid of radon. (Of course you should also stop smoking.)
- Waterluvian 1y agoThat’s exactly the kind of information I was seeking! If your results come back at some ridiculous level, it could make complete sense. But if your results come back much closer to normal background levels, there’s not much you can do. Even the EPA says it’s difficult to get it below 2. Meanwhile, lots of websites out there try to scare you into buying remediation for low values (see comment below). It’s the perfect bogeyman. Radon. Cancer. Invisible silent killer. And I think it’s demonstrated by the vibe-based “seems like a good idea” conclusions in these comments.
- menaerus 1y agoI never heard of the radon cancer impact before and it took me 10 minutes to find couple of representative studies done for my local region which in fact did find the positive correlation between the areas with elevated radon measurements and people living in those areas getting the lung cancer. So, not that "it could make complete sense" but it certainly makes sense. I suggest you do the same research before calling out something as important as this a scam.
- ImPostingOnHN 1y agoI think that if you start from the belief that radon mitigation is sold based on fear, and doesn't have value, then it's easy to cling to that belief and try to dismiss or explain away or minimize information that contradicts it, and to dismiss people who see value in it as 'fear buyers' who believe in a 'bogeyman' and say 'good idea' to things which, in your opinion, might not be good ideas. A perspective perhaps different from yours: Avoidable cancer risk isn't great, and smart people* properly weighing the facts have repeatedly judged the value of radon mitigation to exceed the costs. * - Probabilistically speaking, this includes many who are smarter than you and me
- devjab 1y agoRadon gas is a pretty big thing in construction where I live since our underground is mainly boulder clay (which apparently has or leaks or whatever a lot of radon gas). Anyway, In Denmark a little over 5000 get lung cancer every year, and 300 of thouse are from radon gas. Acording to our Kræftens Bekæmpelse (anti-cancer NGO) there may be an additional 25% risk of radon causing lung cancer if you smoke. Since around 2000, it's been part of building regulations that you gotta build air-gapped foundations in family homes. Those who can measure radon gas are adviced to buy things to fight it, and you can reduce it to basically 0% for little money. I never really considered it from an advertisement perspective as it's adviced by our government and non-profit NGO's. So there is that, if that helps you.
- dathinab 1y ago> and you can reduce it to basically 0% for little money. which is why I'm confused by people second questioning how bad it actually is in context of _fixing_ it (not in context of a national health scope) if there is something which is known to be quite unhealthy in a non small degree, and there is a cheap fix why wouldn't you just fix it. In the end if it's very bad, or slightly less bad or the 10th leading cause instead or whatever doesn't matter, fixing it is affordable and it's guaranteed dangerous on long term exposure so you do it.
- kelnos 1y agoIs radon mitigation affordable, though? Someone in another subthread said they got quotes between $1600 and $3000. Even the low end of that is a difficult amount to spend for a lot of people in the US. If they're going to spend it (if they even can), they're going to want to know it's going to meaningfully decrease their risk of cancer. I'm not saying it's not worth it -- that's the point, I don't know -- but I agree with people upthread that it would be nice to have better information with which to make decisions.
- samus 1y agoIt might be significantly cheaper if installed in new buildings. Even if not, it barely moves the needle compared to the total cost of building a house, and it's almost nothing spread across the lifetime of a typical building.
- safety1st 1y agoMy approach is to think carefully about exactly what I want to know, word the question that way, then throw it to the AI and pray. I think this is better than ignoring it or spending too much time on it. Question: Where does radon related mortality rank versus other mortality factors in the United States? <AI "reasons" a bit> ... Summary: Radon in perspective Category / Cause Approx. Deaths per Year (U.S.) Rank / Context Heart disease ~680,000 #1 overall cause of death Cancer (all causes) ~613,000 #2 overall cause Chronic lower respiratory disease ~145,000 #5 overall (includes COPD, etc.) Lung cancer due to radon ~20,000–21,000 Subset of cancer deaths; about 3–4% Toxic agents (inc. radon, pollutants) ~55,000 ~2.3% of all deaths (includes radon part) So AI says it's a bit less than 1% of preventable deaths (or something) annually. Probably puts it in the top 150 causes or so. What you want to do with that hypothesis, or whether you want to spend time sanity checking it, is up to you. Hitting the gym to avoid heart disease is like 35 times more important. A radon home testing kit to eliminate uncertainty about this particular <1% risk is a one time cheap thing though.
- safety1st 1y agoWhat the hell would someone downvote this for lol. Freaking Hacker News
- ImPostingOnHN 1y agoWhy bring up the AI at all, if you're also making those claims and vouching for that info?
- falcor84 1y agoI was actually thinking of getting one too. Is there a particular Grizzly-as-a-service offering that you recommend? I'm also considering signing up for Ostrich-as-a-service, and am really struggling with this decision.
- wvh 1y agoI reckon grizzly bears have negative health side effects too... It's all a fine balancing act.
- reverendsteveii 1y agowhat's stopping you from getting answers for these questions?
- londons_explore 1y ago> What slice of my mortality pie was radon before and after spending $5000? Could I spend $5000 to cut a bigger slice out of it in another way, like eating better or hiring a grizzly bear to make me exercise more often? I wish more people thought like this. Every time I go to the GP I want to get a printout of my mortality pie based on everything they know about me.