http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&subsectionID=4&articleID=9908
How does Radon ENTER your house?
http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/physic.html#Character
http://radon.utoledo.edu/remedy_mech.html
a suction system can be installed, like in basement floor BUT BUT BUT…
this does NOT stop/prevent radon gas from entering THROUGH any pores/cracks on Outside of hollow-block basement walls.
hey, some of the cracks you folks HAVE on Outside of your block walls are 1/2", 1", and even 2"++ so, any venting pipe installed in floor should help vent radon from under the floor but not going to stop radon from entering basement walls, sorry.
Poured walls? chtt, radon can enter through cracks but also THROUGH ROD HOLES, sure. Sometimes those rod holes are BARELY plugged/packed. Some know this, you`ll see small lil cirlces turning brown or beginning to look moldy, just beginning to allow water/moisture in. Well, IF radon is in the soil against outside of basement walls then it TOO can enter…got MILK?:-k
LZ…if it keeps on raining, levees going to break, when the levee breaks ill have no place to stay(John Bonham beatin the chtt outta those skins)
The radon outside a hollow block basement wall is not trapped and can rise up harmlessly into the yard.
But the radon underneath the slab and between the footers has no place to go but into the home (assuming the stack effect of the house creates a lower pressure than beneath the slab).
just saying, radon could/can enter a basement from the soil outside THROUGH pores,cracks & other openings on outside of hollow block walls.
rain/water and insects enter our homes THROUGH these same openings.
direct openings into homes ABOVE ground, around doors n windows,open mortar joints etc, radon isnt really a factor to enter, THEY say.
but through these Above ground pathways, rain/insects can enter, some could get mold,wood rot. just saying most peoples problems are due to openings on the outside so, they need to fix-seal these on…outside.
termites alone cause ALOT of damage, they can enter homes WITHOUT direct wood contact through openings as small as 1/32 of an inch.
http://radon.utoledo.edu/remedy_mech.html
“the major points of radon entry are the cracks, joints and other penetrations.It is these openings in the walls that allow soil gas to enter the building.”
the FLOOR too. Think about an Inside drain tile system many want to sell HOs, they dont seal any cracks/openings on outside and then, they leave a space, a gap along the cold joint OPEN. Well, what can enter up through these gaps/openings where bottom of bsmt wall and floor meet? Sure, lol, radon gas can.
Dave Matthews “The space between, the wicked lies we tell and hope to keep safe from the pain”
Hello Mr. Gromicko –
Whilst the reported value of radon in the home of the man was certainly very high, it is IMPOSSIBLE and irresponsible to state that the cause of death was from radon. Absolutely, IMPOSSIBLE. ABSOLUTELY impossible. One can apportion risk, but not in a vaccum, bereft of any other informaiton of the man’s exposures.
For a start, (perhaps you haven’t read any of my posts on radon) radon is COMPLETELY biologically inert. Completely. Completely. Radon is very, very different from the etiological entities responsible for inducing radiological risk, which are the SLRDs. And as I may have mentioned once or twice, one cannot assess the SLRDs by measuring radon - its a bogus myth.
Further, for all you know, the individual in question worked with plutonium at the DOE Rocky Flats plant for forty years, or was a laboratory assistant working with bis-chlormethyl ether, or was a printer working with benzene, or had a 58% familial history of lung cancer, or worked as a boiler mechanic and was exposed to asbestos, or liked to sample the whacky weed with frequency, or …. Fill in the blank. To presume that exposure to radon as causality is as ridiculous as associating the population of storks with the birth rate (by the way, in a very real epidemiological study, such an association was positively proven as an example of how correlation does not equal causation).
The article is fraught with inaccuracies and hyperbole such as this little gem: “The Environmental Protection Agency considers a level of four picoCuries per liter dangerous enough to take action.” No it doesn’t! What rubbish! The statement underscores the ingnorance of the writer. After the EPA was so heavily ridiculed in the international scientific and epidemiological world for its wild, unsupported, and unscientific claims about radon, it tucked its tail and retreated for several years, backing off its earlier claims about radon and risk, licking its wounds and trying desperately to regain some kind of credibility in the real world full of real scientists.
Whilst Mr. Kurt Jones (the spokesman, and tacit expert) is undoubtedly a very decent and responsible individual, his expertise is in 4-H Youth Development, Environmental education, Fire prevention, Range/pasture ecosystems, Renewable Resources Education Act, Small acreage management, Urban wildlife management, Wildlife/Hunting Education – hardly an expert in the pertinent fields of epidemiology, health physics or radiation toxicology.
Funny how the newspaper in question didn’t bother to interview one of the CU/CSU Health Physicists, or Epidemiologists or others with actual expertise in the issue of radiation and health exposure. How boring would that be to get an expert in the field who would give them actual facts that didn’t fit their neat little story? Fear mongering is an irresponsible act – fear mongering for financial gain is immoral and reprehensible.
For the most part, trying to get scientifically valid information from a newspaper is like trying to get suitable financial advise from a pan-handler.
I can assure you that the cause of death listed on the death certificate was definitely not listed as “Radon exposure.” Wanna wager? Fifty bucks says so.
Those interested in reading about radon may do so at my web discussion:
http://www.forensic-applications.com/radon/radon.html
Here’s my challenge. If any Home Inspector can find one, ONE – just ONE scientifically valid study that conclusively demonstrates, with no confounders, that radon concentrations as normally found in homes significantly increases the risk of cancer, I will profusely apologize, reconsider my thoughts and buy them dinner at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.
Long time readers on this board saw what happened to a supposed radon expert (our friend the professor) when he was faced with hard facts about epidemiology.
Cheers!
Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
www.forensic-applications.com
(The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.)
AMDG
Thanks Caoimhín P. Connell for your info much appreciated .
Roy Cooke
Wanna have some fun?
The state of Illinois is proposing legislation that will require that the seller of a home pay to have a “state licensed radon contractor” test the home at the seller’s expense. If the radon level exceeds a certain amount, the seller must pay to have the issue resolved prior to selling the house.
I think that you may be able to enlighten a few people who seem to be placing an unnecessary burden on an already depressed real estate market.
Mr Connell,
first, thanks for posting-informing :mrgreen:
second, let me ask you of your thoughts/experiences regarding mold growing on basements wall(s) DUE TO, water entering the basement wall through crack/other opening, yep, we know thats NOT the Only reason,moisture possibility in basement. And not all molds are harmful, got that too;-)
specifically talking about water that enters through basement wall and mold is growing on wall/part of wall where water-moisture is ENTERING
in your opinion/experience, if the homeowner wants to get rid of the mold would you recommend they eliminate the water-moisture from entering?
regarding your knowledge on radon, help me see clearly ( was that Johnny Nash? I can see clearly now the rain has gone)…Is it at all POSSIBLE for someone to get lung cancer due to excessive exposure to radon in a home? All i know, oops…"think’ i know about radon if what i read, ya know. :mrgreen: And i`m guessing quite a few others are in same boat, NO radon expert here. If high levels of radon are in the soil under a basement floor and/or, in the soil against a basement wall, i can certainly SEE where/how it can enter. need help please, thanks
Hello Mr. Bubber:
You ask:
…if the homeowner wants to get rid of the mold would you recommend they eliminate the water-moisture from entering?
High quality mould remediation companies focus on water damage restoration. They know that mould remediation is 99% water intrusion identification and then structural restoration.
Mould is not the problem; moisture is the problem and mould is the visual manifestation of that problem. No moisture – no mould. That simple. Until one has properly identified and corrected the moisture intrusion, no mould remediation techniques will be successful.
In three particularly mould infested properties in which I consulted, the water intrusion problem was the result of multi-million $$ civil engineering alterations that disturbed and redirected the vadose zone water causing the water table to rise in the area of the properties. In those cases, extremely expensive drainage and landscaping was carried out by the municipality to re-direct the vadose zone flow (in one case, the city just bought the entire farm (literally) and out-buildings and leveled the structures - no building, no mould problem).
Regarding risk and radon question:
Is it at all POSSIBLE for someone to get lung cancer due to excessive exposure to radon in a home?
Straight forward question – I wish my answer was as easy.
A paradigm of toxicology is that fractionation of the dose decreases risk. In simple terms, if I drink a gallon of tequila for dinner I will be dead by morning (even though I am Irish with a legendary liver). But, if I fractionate that dose and I drink a gallon of tequila and spread it over the next twenty years, I won’t even get drunk. So even though the dose I have consumed is the same (one gallon per my body weight) my risk of death from the insult is virtually zero. In fact, there is a dose vs. time frame in between these two extremes wherein the physiological response is linearly proportional to the dose, and there is a dose, below which, there is no adverse effect.
Now, this concept sort of breaks down when it come to some carcinogenic insults wherein we know that if we whack someone all at once with a particular dose, the risk of death is less than if we hit them with the same absolute dose, but over a longer period of time. So it is kind of backwards at certain dose ranges.
In the case of radon (or actually not “radon,” but Short Lived Radon Daughters, SLRDs), we see that the first problem we have is that for the most part, studying the health effects are actually extremely difficult since the absolute risks at the concentrations normally observed in houses are extremely small and get overwhelmed by the other risks of death we encounter every day.
Therefore, we develop exposure models wherein we take a subject group and exposure it to extremely high doses, calculate the death rate and then linearly proportion that death rate down to the doses we actually observe in real life.
It is rather like studying the adverse health effects of aflatoxins in peanut butter. If we take 1,000 rats and stuff them with three times their body weight with peanut butter every day, we will force the carcinogenic effect of the peanut butter. But then we have to linearly extrapolate the risk from that dose back to a normal consumption in a normal human and if we do that, we see that we hit what is known as the NOEL (No observable adverse effect level) but we do so when we still have lots of peanut butter left over! So, we model it such that we artificially force the linear line we draw to go through the “zero” point on the risk scale at the same time as the “zero” point on the “peanut butter scale” - that is - no peanut butter= no risk. This is called the “no threshold, linear dose/response curve.” Hmmm but is that valid? If it is valid, then we better regulate peanut butter.
In the case of radon, [FONT=Arial]the model employed an exposed group of miners who smoked like chimneys. The LOWEST concentrations used in the EPA models was 80 WLM!! (equivalent to 2.7 million pCi/l hour). (BTW, How many houses in the US have radon levels even approaching 0.0001% of this value?) Then the EPA arbitrarily and without any supporting argument assumed that 1) Every death of a miner was directly attributable to the radon, and not the cigarete smoking, and 2) they used a linear, no-threshold, dose-response curve. It is known, conclusively and undeniably that the model was GROSSLY GROSSLY GROSSLY GROSSLY inappropriate for proportioning the risk down to the levels seen by normal people in normal homes. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial] [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]How do we know the models are grossly inappropriate? Well, look at what the EPA modelers had to say about their own technique in their original documents:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]"[/FONT]The only human data available for predicting the risks to the public are studies examining the health effects of exposure to radon and its progeny in underground miners. This information would be appropriate for predicting the risks to the public if everyone was a miner, everyone lived in mines, and a large fraction of the general population smoked cigarettes." (U.S. Department of Energy "Radon- Radon Research Program, FY 1989, DOE/ER-448P., March 1990)
[FONT=Arial]Now perhaps it’s just me and my old fashioned ways, but I don’t live in a mine and I don’t smoke. I live in a house and although I like the occasional cigar, I’m not a smoker. Yes, I know that’s odd, but I’m kinda quirky that way.
[/FONT]What we do know about radon is this – the risk does not follow an intuitive dose response pattern. We are forced to use models at low levels (because frankly, if we don’t, we will conclude that there is NO risk at those levels – and the idea of “zero risk” is an aberration to all toxicological modelers including me). Therefore, some of the largest risk models done at low concentrations actually show an hormetic effect (that is, the risk of cancer goes DOWN as the person is exposed to low levels of radon, such as those seen in normal houses), and the risk continues to decline as the concentration of radon goes UP!
Then, in the dose risk curve, at concentrations MUCH higher than seen in all but perhaps an handful of houses in North America (literally perhaps a couple of thousand houses), we see that the physiological response changes with dose, and as the dose goes up, the risk goes up.
But the story doesn’t end there, because then we are thrown a curve – literally. We see that as the radon concentrations continue to climb, the risk at extremely elevated concentrations, goes DOWN, creating an inverted “U” shaped dose v risk curve.
Now, the story actually gets rather complicated from there, but the net result is that at low commonly encountered doses of radon (actually SLRDs) that we see in houses, the risk of cancer is LESS than people who are not exposed, then, at somewhat higher doses, the risk is the same as people who are not exposed, then as the concentration goes up further, the risk begins to climb and increases over those who are not exposed, and finally at even higher doses, the risk plummets unexpectedly back down to apparently no documentable risk.
Further, at this point in time, what is not known is: does fractionation of the dose increase or decrease the risk – i.e., is the total accumulative life-time dose or the dose rate more important?
What we know is this: There is not one single valid scientific study on planet Earth that has studied radon concentrations as commonly encountered in homes and conclusively demonstrated that at those concentrations there is an elevated risk of cancer. Not one. Not one. My offer for dinner at the Denver Brown Palace Hotel is safe for the foreseeable future. (I’m not a gambling man, I never make a wager that I have the slightest chance of loosing).
I hope that answers your question: Is it at all POSSIBLE for someone to get lung cancer due to excessive exposure to radon in a home? The answer is “No,” then changes to “No,” then changes to “Yes,” then changes back to “No.”
People who want pat answers should never become toxicologists. However, you too can be a toxicologist in two easy lessons – each lasting ten years.
My head hurts, I wonder will a small glass of whiskey help? The answer is “Yes.”
Cheers,
Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
www.forensic-applications.com
(The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.)
AMDG
Now THAT is an answer…I, too, have a headache – pass that bottle over here, would you please…:shock: :shock:
Mr. Connell,
Your OUTSTANDING posts on radon are always enlightening and informative. Thank you for adding some needed scientific facts to the discussion - especially in the face of obviously ridiculous hyperbole like the newspaper story.
While I understand from your various posts that there is a lack of reliable evidence supporting the initial EPA position (4 picocuries as an action level), are there any sources that I can link to, to offer my clients which would help educate them (much as you do with your posts here)?
Many are curious about radon, and rather than make their decision for them, or guide them in one direction or another, I would like to point them to the various viewpoints on it and let them form their own conclusions.
Thanks for the education!
Mr Connell,
thank you for your time/effort/knowledge 
if i may post your thoughts on water/mold on basement wall(s) again, just for the Inside companies/salespeople who… SELL HOs what they ONLY/rather do, in other words, they dont do Exterior Waterproofing, IMO, Most simply bllchtt,mislead,make false claims to the public for…self gain :mrgreen:
in short, “NO water NO mold”. No mold remediation technique will be successful until water/moisture source is eliminated.
Hey Inside water-diverting Gang, to stop/prevent water intrusion through cracks and other openings into basement/home you should be informing HO`s with your supposed-expertise they fix/caulk/tuckpoint/waterproof these openings on the…outside, got milk?
An inside drain tile system or baseboard system w/sump does NOT, will not stop/prevent water from entering basement through these outside openings.
Some will try and tell HO to simply raise-slope grade, that this will or most likely solve water/moisture intrusion problems in basement,hmmm.
Ever have a leaky roof and have a roofing contractor tell ya the problem is the…slope/grade of roof? They tell ya to raise `n slope the roof to fix the leak? #-o
Ever have a roofing contractor fix a leaky roof from the inside, like patch the inside of attic or ceiling? #-o
Let me ask ya`s this, how did the TITANIC sink? :-k :-k :-k
Was it due to the grade of the ocean, the slope of a wave? ](*,) Of course not, openings Openings OPENINGS on outside allow......water to enter inside. If one doesn`t stop water then they can`t prevent mold.
When the Titanic hit the 'Berg' it caused a, ahem....hole, an opening.
Jethro Tull...... meanwhile back in the YEAR one(1), when you belonged to no-one, ya didn`t stand a chance....son, if your pants were undone.
GC ... you have to stay in shape. My mother started walking 5 miles per day when she was 60. She`s 97 now and we have no idea where she is.
... they show you how detergents take out bloodstains. I think if you`ve got a T-shirt with bloodstains all over it,maybe your laundry isn`t your biggest problem.
... ever notice when you blow in yer dog`s face he gets mad at you,but when you take him in the car he sticks his head out the window?
... future historians will be able to study at the Jimmy Carter Library, the Gerald Ford Library, the Ronald Reagan Library and the Bill Clinton Adult BookstoreHeck, I just give them Mr. Connell’s post!
The hyperlink below shows an article about a study granted by the European commission to investigate the effect of radon concentrations in break rooms on the employees. There result is a statical significant increase of 16% with the consideration of smoking and inherited variances.
http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news?print=1&id=99103
The next hyperlink is about an article which references two big studies in Germany which have been done by GSF-Institutes for Epidemiology and came to the conclusion that there is a significant higher risk of cancer with radon in residential homes.
http://www.gsf.de/OA/mu1_00/mu1_00p10.html
I will try to get you the studies them-self for your review and reconsideration and I am sure to get the first one in English since there where 9 countries involved. For the earlier on in Germany, in the mid 90’s I might get an abstract. 
I just happend to follow the discussion of radon in Germany
Raymond
PS: 1 pCi/L = 37 Bq/m3
Hello Mr. Newman;
Thank you for the information. If you go through the trouble of getting me copies of the reports, I promise I will review them and post my observations and critical presentaitons on this board.
By the way, you finish your post with a falacy:
PS: 1 pCi/L = 37 Bq/m3
In fact, 1 pCi/L of radon does not equal 37 Bq/m3 since the value as presented using EPA protocols is based on an unmeasured (but presumed) Equilibration Ratio of 0.5, in truth, 1 pCi/L of radon does not even equal 1 pCi/L !
Cheers!
Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
www.forensic-applications.com
(The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.)
AMDG
Just to clarify what I wanted to point out, with the last line to relate the numbers to each other
Bequerel (Bq) and Bq/m3
Bequerel is the international standard unit for radioactivity; that is the rate that radioactive materials decay.One Bq is one decay per second. The US unit of radioactivity is the Curie(Ci). One Ci is 3.7x 10E[size=1]10 decays per second. Bq/m3 is the international unit for volumetric activity concentration. The relationship between activity concentrations is that 1 pCi/L = 37 [/size]Bq/m[size=1]3[/size]
picoCurie and pCi/L
The US unit of radioactivity is the Curie(Ci). One Ci is 3.7x 10E[size=1]10 decays per second. One picoCurie is 3.7x 10E-2decays per second or 3.7x 10E-2Bq. pCi/L is the US unit for volumetric activity concentration. The relationship between activity concentrations is that 1 pCi/L = 37 Bq/m[/size]3
Raymond
edited because of them darn exponents
[FONT=Verdana][size=2][FONT=Verdana]Or if you prefer Working Level (WL)
Ref: R.J.Wilson, Colorado State University
What physicists are familiar with: *Curie *and Bequerel
– Curie (Ci): Measure of the rate of radioactive decay corresponding to an amount of material that produces 3.70 E10 disintegrations per second.
– Bequerel (Bq): SI unit of activity, 1 Bq = 1 disintegration per second.
1 pCi of material has an activity of 0.037 Bq (2.22 disintegrations per minute).
What mine operators use: Working Level
– 1 Working Level (WL) represents any combination of *short-lived radon decay products *in one liter of air that will result in the ultimate emission of 1.3 x 105 MeV of potential alpha energy. – Conversion of working level (WL) to radon activity (pCi/L, Bq/m3) is approximate and depends on the equilibrium ratio.
For “still” air: 1 WL = 100 pCi/L = 3700 Bq/m3
– Air flow => non-equilibrium.
Commonly used is 50 percent equilibrium ratio typical of the home environment:
1 WL = 200 pCi/L = 7400 Bq/m
- Complicates interpretation of mine measurements[/FONT]
[/size][/FONT]
Caoimhin:
I disagree.
Radon is one of the few causes of cancer that actually has dead bodies (uranium miners) laying around to prove how dangerous it is.
And although you are technically correct in that no one can tell for sure what caused the cancer (lung cancer caused by cigarettes is microscopically identical to lung cancer caused by radon) I don’t think it far fetched for one to say that a very high radon level or “3 packs a day” or whatever… caused one’s cancer.
Technically one who gets hit by a bus probably dies from blood loss or internal bleeding or whatever… but I’d say he died from “getting hit by a bus.”
Here is the German study press release in english:
http://www.gsf.de/Aktuelles/Presse/Radon_2004_en.pdf
I am still waiting on a response to the european study.
Hello Gents!
Some excellent comments and an interesting thread, to be sure. Thank you for permitting me to participate.
Mr. Newman:
You explanation of a Bequerel was excellent and mostly correct; however, it was not addressing my point. My point was that 1 pCi/L of radon as reported using the EPA protocols does not equal 37 Bq/m3 because 1 pCi/L of *radon *as reported using the EPA protocols, does not equal 1 pCi/L in air. The pCi/L of radon using the EPA protocol is a made-up number that does not have a basis in objective fact, and is not based on physical realities. It is a made-up number based on a specific protocol.
The reason being is that, depending on the particular method employed, it is possible to have 100 pCi/L of radon (as reported pursuant to EPA protocols) in room whose air contains less than 1 pCi/L of actual disintegration. That is because, as I mentioned in my earlier post, the equilibration ratio of 0.5 is an arbitrary selection by the EPA that probably does not exist in most houses.
You even point to this yourself in your second post wherein you reproduce the comment:
Commonly used is 50 percent equilibrium ratio typical of the home environment:
It certainly is commonly used, but, that’s because most people using it are using the EPA protocol, since they are not actually measuring what the REAL ER is.
Finally, thank you for the PDF file. However, the PDF is NOT a study it is merely a press release announcing the study. Press releases are notoriously inaccurate, and for that reason are virtually never referenced by the legitimate scientific community. If you would be so kind as to obtain a copy of the actual study (these study reports can often be 30-70 pages in length) I would be happy to review it.
Hello Mr. Gromicko:
You say:
“Radon is one of the few causes of cancer that actually has dead bodies (uranium miners) laying around to prove how dangerous it is.”
Your comment is at once untrue and irrelevant to the topic under discussion. If we were discussing the health aspects of uranium miners, that would be one thing. We are, however, discussing the issue of radon gas in homes. I challenge you, here publicly, to provide the name of one person on planet Earth – just one – who, not having been a uranium miner, and having been exposed to radon at concentrations commonly seen in houses has demonstrably died from that exposure. You cannot do it, Mr. Gromicko. If you claim that you can, you will loose all credibility, or you will be the first person in history that can so do – (but you will be up for a Nobel Prize in health physics and epidemiology).
You may be an excellent realtor and home inspector, but, with the greatest of respect, I must say that based on your many comments on this board, you have a seriously lacking in the understanding of radiation toxicology and epidemiology. That is not an insult since you are neither an health physicist, nor an industrial hygienist and are not expected to have a good grasp of these fields. However, whilst I recognize my weaknesses in other fields (for example I NEVER inspect homes, work on cars, attempt to perform dentistry, or build rockets), you seem to be unwilling to recognize that you are deficient in the fields of epidemiology, radiation toxicology and industrial hygiene.
Cheers, all!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Caoimhín P. Connell
Forensic Industrial Hygienist
www.forensic-applications.com
(The opinions expressed here are exclusively my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect my professional opinion, opinion of my employer, agency, peers, or professional affiliates. The above post is for information only and does not reflect professional advice and is not intended to supercede the professional advice of others.)
AMDG