Homeowning 101: Radon - Style Two
Primary tabs
Radon has been in the news the last couple of months with some changes to Minnesota law, and the EPA designated January as Radon Action Month, so this week I’m taking a few minutes to give a quick overview of radon, the risks it poses, regulations and recommendations, and what you can do to protect yourself and your family. I’ve tried to walk that fine line between too vague for those wanting exact information and too technical for those looking for a quick read, so bear with me. The numbers are important, and so is accessibility.
First things first. Radon is a naturally occurring gas, a direct product of the radium that is created as uranium and thorium in the earth decay. It’s an element in its own right, the only radioactive one among the noble gases that you had the pleasure of learning about in high school chemistry class (Symbol: RN; Atomic number: 86). Though its very short half-life (3.8 days) makes it one of the rarest elements, there’s always some radon in the air around us as it seeps up from underground, and it has a tendency to get trapped and concentrated in buildings, including our homes. If the concentrations are too high, radon can pose some serious risks.
Before I get into too much detail on these risks and how to mitigate them, it’s worth getting to know just how radon works and what radon measurements mean. As we breathe radon in the air, radioactive particles from it can get trapped in our lungs and then release bursts of energy as the unstable atoms blast off excess energy. These bursts damage lung tissue and can cause lung cancer over time
(multiple studies, two of which can be found on my online blog have confirmed the direct link between radon and lung cancer). Though no amount of radon is particularly good for us, it starts to get noticeably dangerous at concentrations of about 2 picocuries per liter, and the risk of health effects increases again sharply at about 4PCi/liter. What is a picocurie, you ask? Well, maybe you didn’t ask, but I did, and now I’m sharing whether you like it or not. A picocurie is one trillionth of a curie, which probably doesn’t clear much up unless you know that a curie is a unit of measure for the intensity of radioactive activity. So measuring in picocuries of radon is measuring how many radioactive disintegrations occur in a liter in a fixed time. If air has one picocurie of radon per liter, it means that there are 2.22 of the tissue-damaging bursts of energy in each liter
of air each minute. Outside, the air has an average radon level of 0.4PCi/liter, and the indoor average is 1.3PCi/L, so a concentration of 2PCi/L is elevated, and a concentration of 4PCi/L is quite high; at these higher levels the risk of radon-related lung cancer increases sharply. According to the EPA, at the average indoor concentration of 1.3 PCi/L, about 2 non-smokers in a thousand could end up with radon-related lung cancer; at 2PCi/L that number doubles to 4 (the same risk of dying of poison), and at 4PCi/L it almost doubles again to 7 (the same risk as dying in a car crash). For smokers, the story is much, much worse, as you might expect: at 2PCi/L radon could contribute to lung cancer in 32 of a thousand people and at 4PCi/L that number jumps to 62. In recent years, radon has been the second leading cause of lung cancer, right behind smoking, and the WHO says that it is responsible for some 15% of lung cancers worldwide. According to EPA estimates, radon-related lung cancer kills some 21,000 people per year, including 2,900 people who have never smoked. Just for context, about 17,400 people per year die because of drunk driving, according to CDC and National Safety
Council reports in 2005 and 2006. The EPA estimates that about 1 in 15 homes in the US has a radon level above 4PCi/L, and any age, style, or configuration of house can be affected. And because of Minnesota’s geology – lots of granite bedrock with uranium happily decaying in it – we are particularly prone to high concentrations of radon (not being able to open a window for months at a time doesn’t help, either).
According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the average level in Minnesota is actually three times the national average, and instead of 1 in 15 homes having high radon levels, our number is closer to 2 in 5. In Rice county, 3 in 5 homes have levels above 4PCi/L, with an average of about 5.9PCi/L, according to Rice County public health. Sort of horrifying, right? Fortunately, it’s actually very easy to test radon concentrations in your home and to bring levels down if they’re elevated.
The first step is to test your home’s radon levels; because radon is colorless and odorless and exposure causes no immediate symptoms, and because radon levels vary widely even in a small area, a test is really the only way to determine your home’s radon level. The EPA recommends testing when you move in, every two years after that, and if you make structural changes to your home or begin
using a lower level like a basement more often (because radon enters the home from the ground, lower levels have higher concentrations than upper storeys). Testing is surprisingly easy to do and mostly consists of leaving a testing device alone in your home for a while and then having the levels read from the device. You can do it yourself or hire a professional, and there are two main types of test, a short-term test and a longer term one. The short-term test stays in your house anywhere from two to 90 days, depending on what kind of test you’re using, and is good to give you a quick picture of current radon levels. The long-term test stays for more than 90 days.
See jessesteed.com for more information
