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Radon Gas- In My Home?….Radioactive?? No way - Will I start to glow? (part 1)
November 17th, 2007 categories: Real Estate News
Those of us who live in North Carolina, don’t hear a whole lot about radon. Of course the limited things we do hear often relate to the scary stuff – little sound bites like radioactive, cancer, death. Enough to wonder if you are about to grow a third appendage when you hear your home has “high radon levels”. Let’s take a look at this….
First, just what is radon? Radon comes from radioactive decay of the element uranium, which decays into radium, which decays into radon. Oops there are those words that make us nervous – radioactive, radiation. Well almost always think of nuclear attacks and all the horror stories we associated with radiation.
Radiation, though, is a sort of general term that is associated with a form of energy that is transmitted in the form of high speed particles and electro magnetic waves. Things like television, microwaves, even your clock radio generate “radiation”. The radiation from a nuclear blast and the reactions in a nuclear power plant are the types of radiation that give radiation a “bad name”. This is extremely high levels of energy and the particles emitted are more dangerous and the harmful effects well documented.
When a compound is decaying, it means that it is “unstable” and is emitting particle from it nucleus. In the case of uranium, enough particles are
emitted to where its make-up is altered and it is radium, radium is more stable but keeps emitting particles to become radon, radon is still not stable and it throws off particles. It actually will become polonium, bismuth, and eventually lead. Stay with me here – a key point: As indicated above, radioactive decay occurs when a substance is emitting particles. The decay of uranium to radon involves the emission of particles called alpha particles. These are one of several types of particles in radioactive decay. Alpha particles travel very fast but are easily stopped by a piece of paper. On the other extreme, gamma particles travel at the speed of light and can go right through your body.
So, if the radioactive particles of radon are easily stopped, then what’s to worry, you can reasonably? Well the problem is that the particles can attach themselves to dust, etc. While they don’t cause issues with attacking your skin, they can easily be inhaled. One in your lungs the particles can attack individual cells. Attack on cells is what can eventually cause a cancerous cell to be born and eventually lung cancer. This is the whole issue with radon. The surgeon general says radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. Smoking, (there’s a surprise) is number one. Current statistics say that about 14,000 deaths per year are attributed to radon-caused lung cancer. (as a side note about 10 times this amount is caused by smoking only).
Keep this lung cancer stuff in perspective though. Radon exposure does not cause shortness of breath, coughing, fever, or other short-term symptoms. The lung cancer worries are from prolonged exposure. The big question, is what is prolong exposure? It depends on the weather, how long you are in your house, the condition of your lungs, etc. Radon is like so many contaminants floating around. There is not much doubt it cause problems, it’s just that each and every case is different. There is actually no guarantee that you will develop lung cancer with prolong exposure to radon.
That’s a lot of information on what radon is specifically. You might be asking, so what do I do with this information? Stay tuned, we will discuss that on the next post. In the meantime, let me know if you have some specific questions about this topic.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Good general information.
The current statistics are ~ 22,000 deaths per year. If the person smokes & has radon their probability of the smoke getting lung cancer are approximately 2 1/2 times, but their deaths are counted in the smoking deaths.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
The hard part is the inspection for radon. They bring in a box, seal off the house and leave it there for 48 hrs. This is no way to determine the long term radon levels of a property.
Weather can change the readings. So can an open window. Do you “live” on the first level, the second or the third?
A vacant house will have higher levels than an occupied house because of doors opening and closing. Same with windows.
While there is little doubt you would rather have less than more there is no quick test. You need a long term test (weeks? months?) to get a true reading. Just my $.02.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
[…] Radon Gas- In My Home?….Radioactive?? No way - Will I start to glow? (part 1) - Written by Brian Miller over in the Charlotte area (Hi Dad!) this is a great, informative article about the ever scary Radon Gas situation so much of the country deals with. […]
December 14th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
interesting and fantastic report. thx for your sharing
July 17th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
[…] real estate agent down in Charlotte, North Carolina wrote on Radon Gas last November. And here is a helpful website from the Kansas State Engineering […]