Radon in your Home

Did anyone watch the Dr. Oz segment about hidden toxins in your home which aired a few days ago? The issue that caught my attention in particular was the radon gas emitting from granite countertops as this was news to me. Radon gas causes lung cancer. With granite countertops being the popular trend for kitchen remodeling and in our case we had it installed when our house was built I was shocked to hear this. We tested our basement a few years ago and it had a very high reading at a level of 16 (EPA recommends this number to be less than 4) which is not a good thing, so my husband put in a radon mitigation system. Our readings were zero for the three months after installing it. However, I never thought to test our kitchen/family room area thinking granite could be emitting high amounts of radon.

Obviously, this was of concern to me so I made a few phone calls yesterday to a couple of testing agencies in my area and to my local EPA. One guy was a certified radon tester and he said he would use a Geiger counter to test the radon on my counters and in the living area for $95.00. He said the alpha particles is what he would focus on which apparently is what would identify radon levels. However, he notes on his website that in his experience, of the granite he's tested, there have been few that measure above the EPAs recommendation.

My concern is that I had read that Geiger counters (which is what they used for Dr. Oz's show) are actually not very accurate in determining what is radon vs potassium or thoron. Apparently a high clicking could be identifying potassium which is of no concern. And, thoron is another gas similar to radon, but of smaller concern because it doesn't have the life-span that radon does. This is my quick summary on the use of Geiger counters, but you can read more about granite and radon on www.radon.com.

A gentleman from my local EPA did call me back and expressed that Geiger counters is a bad way to test radon on granite countertops and recommended I do the following:

1. Re-Test the basement using either a short-term ($15) or long-term kit ($25) depending on fast I wanted results. These can be ordered from the EPA website which also provide more information on radon testing your home.
2. Test the basement again since it's been more than two years since our last test to ensure our mitigation system was working properly and no leaks have developed.
3. Test the area near the kitchen (in our case our family room) and check radon levels to ensure it's less than 4. If they are greater than 4 then the granite could be an issue or the readings are higher than the basement.

I expressed to him that my father had a continuous radon monitor device which is what we used previously to check our radon levels in our basement. The EPA gentleman indicated that this actually is not an approved EPA device because the company has never let them ensure the device provides accurate readings. He also went on to express that these systems may be inaccurate because they need to be calibrated and this system doesn't calibrate. However, if I wanted to test with this system again, it would be fine as long as I use the short-term or long-term test to ensure that the readings are accurate.

I asked the difference between the short-term test and long-term and he expressed the short-term is a quick few day test to see the radon levels in your home. Keep in mind they could be higher in the winter since we're closed in more and not as much outside air circulates around the house. As far as I'm concerned I wouldn't want this to be high at any time. The long-term test provides an average of the levels of your home since you would monitor this longer. Both these tests need to be sent in and in a few days you would get a report.

He also stated that in most cases that granite is fine and this rumor about radon from granite started with the marble and quartz industry. But, they have found that some granite from certain countries are an issue. He mentioned Brazil. Well, our granite is tropical brown which my husband seems to remember to be from South America while I searched and determined it's from Saudi Arabia. I also found this article about testing the most popular granite (ours being one of them) and how it's not an issue. I'm sure if I did even more research, I find equal amount of cases on both sides. So, since I like to play it safe rather than sorry....

I did order the short-term test though my husband indicated we already had a couple of them received when he ordered our radon mitigation system. And, I plan to borrow the Siren System my dad has from him today so we can do some quick initial testing.

If you haven't checked your basement (if you have one), then this should be the first place you check. Radon tends to be more of an issue in the soil around your house and it tends to be higher in the basement. If you have granite countertops, then you might want to use a short-term test like me and test your area around the kitchen or wherever you have granite. By the way, I did ask about those specific granite radon test kits and the EPA said they didn't believe those are accurate, but didn't get specifics. My own conclusion is that granite does emit radon (it's a natural stone), and they don't want you to test the stone because it will be higher. They are more concerned with what actually gets in the air. I think if my room levels near and in the kitchen come out high or is higher than my reading in the basement then I might invest in that kit or call the certified radon specialist to verify. I'm just hoping the readings are low as I don't really want to replace my countertops. I'll keep you posted.