‘I didn’t think it would be in my house’: Lung cancer survivor warns of radon risks
‘I didn’t think it would be in my house’: Lung cancer survivor warns of radon risks
Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in Canada for nonsmokers, as the radioactive gas can build up to hazardous levels indoors.
Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in Canada for nonsmokers, as the radioactive gas can build up to hazardous levels indoors.
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Wait, so the radon is just leaking out of the earth and into your home?
Is this a canada specific issue due to the regional soil composition? Or is this a risk globally?
To my knowledge it's global, not just specific areas, however the levels vary. In the Midwest (USA) it's quite common to perform radon tests during a home sale, and homes with basements will frequently have a 'radon mitigation' system installed; basically a large fan draws the air out of the space beneath your concrete slab and air-tight plastic is installed in crawl spaces to form a negative pressure so the airborne radon is pulled out before it enters the home, and then exhausted up above the roof line to blow away like other exhaust from HVAC and appliances.
Have a system installed in my home to keep levels as low as possible, even though it tested below the 'dangerous' threshold when I purchased. (Better safe than sorry).
Yeah "safe than sorry" is definitely the better choice for an invisible cancer gas, yikes
Having kids made it a no-brainer
Building codes where I am, outside of Chicago, have required all new homes to have passive radon venting installed during construction for at least twenty years. This is a length of PVC pipe that runs from just inside the sump pit in the basement (lowest point) all the way through the house and up out the roof. The sump pit also has a sealed plastic cover bolted on.
It's then elementary to buy a radon fan and install it in that PVC pipe in the attic, making it an active system. You want to have less than 4pCi/l (picocuries per liter) radiation. My basement office used to be like 23pCi/l. After installing a fan (and then later replacing it when the first one stopped doing its job), it's at 1.6pCi/l.
Most of the radon tests out there are "single use," where you set the test down, wait for some period of time, send it off to be analyzed. These are like US$20 or US$30. One company makes a plug-in detector that runs all the time, and alarms when it's over 4pCi/l. It's about US$130, and worth every penny if you have a finished basement and anyone spends time in it.
Edit: A quick look at Amazon shows that the garbage companies are now making always on radon detectors. This is new since I bought mine like five or six years ago. You want a SafetySiren brand, and the newest model is now US$180 on Amazon.
It is not canada specific. There are maps online like https://radonmap.com/ found another one here https://radonkit.ca/blog/radon-gas-map-for-canada-potential-radon-levels-across-canada/
I didn't think my area was high but all the maps I find say it is. Maybe time for a test...
Edit: fixed link.
100% recommend a professional test and not just disposable things. They'll set up a few machines on tripods for a few days and you'll get to see highs/lows in different rooms instead of just a yes/no or a peak value. Can really help make a good decision about mitigation
I work for a health charity that does some work in the radon field. I won't rehash what others have said other than it's legit and relatively unknown. The only thing I'll add is that modern home construction makes it worse since buildings are much more sealed than they used to be which causes the radon to build up instead of escaping into the surrounding atmosphere.
Some (maybe all at this point) provincial building codes now require a rough in pipe opening in your foundation so you can install a mitigation system if levels become a problem in your house.
Cool, so you work with this. How dense is radon compared to open air? Is it light enough to pool on the ceiling? Or is it mixed enough in density to be present in the entire column? Im assuming its not too heavy since it rises from the soil.
Is this something that regular air circulation makes trivial?
Radon is denser, it gets sucked into your house because of the pressure difference. Since it is denser it will pool in the lower levels so the guidelines say to test the lowest floor where you spend a lot of time. If there's not high amounts of radon in that location it won't be in the upper floors.
Air circulation internally should cause the amount to average across your entire house. And internal to external ventilation is how you get it to dissipate. That's why the guideline is to test for at least 3 months over the winter when houses are more sealed up. That way you get the worst case result and over the summer it would probably be less.
Radon is dangerous because it's radioactive with a half life of 3 days which is a very human timescale compared to some other radioactive particles and if a radon particle happens to be inside your lungs when it does decay it will damage your lung tissue and long term repeated exposure will put you at greater risk of lung cancer.
Radon is just regular air that gets irradiated by uranium ore in the soil. It doesn't settle in your house, the basement just tends to have less airflow.
Yep, exactly.
I found this article that explains it well.
Radon gas can be found throughout the United States – literally from coast to coast. In fact, there is radon in every single state, although at different levels and not all amounts are considered dangerous.
Not to get too complicated, but radon gas is a byproduct of the element radium which ultimately comes from uranium. According to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey, uranium is the parent element and is found deep within the earth’s crust. It’s billions of years old. As time passes, it breaks down forming radium, the daughter element. When solid radium decays, it releases radon gas. All three are radioactive substances.
The reason radon gas is found everywhere is because uranium is everywhere – all rocks are composed of at least a trace amount of it. Over time, the rocks beneath the earth’s surface break down and turn into soil. So, if the deep rocks in the area contain uranium, it stands to reason that the soil at the surface will too.
The U.S. Geological Survey explains that radon moves easily and quickly through porous soils, like sand and gravel, and slower through more solid soils, clay being one such example. Moisture has a lot to do with this. In wet soil, like clay, it’s harder for the radon to permeate it, so the radon often becomes trapped and deteriorates before it reaches the surface. In dry, porous soils, radon gas is able to quickly escape into the air.
It can happen everywhere, but there is at least one case in Canada where the radon is coming from uranium mine tailings rather than just being there naturally. It's been in the news in northeastern Ontario on and off for months now.
Most parts of eastern Canada have comparatively high levels of Uranium in the ground - the radioactive decay process turns Uranium into Radon, which finds its way into buildings, and collects in basements because it's heavier than air. It's been made worse by the whole "R2000" building standard which means homes are practically air tight.
The worst part is that federal and provincial building codes don't make the installation of radon remediation equipment standard -- and it costs practically nothing to install at construction time -- whereas cutting trenches in your foundation to install PVC pipe is extraordinarily disruptive.