Re: Radon

I was just thinking, I could have put two of those Pabst fans in series to get more suction. One has about 1 inch of water. We put three Muffin like fans together once to make air flow through a long pipe with exaust feeding the intake. Put in a heater to incubate an egg container inside an MRI. Really hosey.

greg

I did it agaian !!

greg

I need a big rubber for the basement.

greg

s to

fans

heater

what do you use to test for radon..

I have an old Geiger counter, but i know it can't detect alpha, but when i looked into this it seems to me that radons's daughters also emit alpha and or beta so if there is radon present the Geiger counter should detect that it is there, if not detecting the radon directly..

I never did get this clear though, can a geiger counter (that does not respond to alpha particles) detect the presence of radon or not?

Mark

wrote: [...]

Well, please don't.

--
    W
  . | ,. w ,   "Some people are alive only because
   \|/  \|/     it is illegal to kill them."    Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

Better ventilation of the basement ought to fix it.

Depends how thin the mica window is. It might detect a proportion of alphas between 5-15% efficiency with the right sort of tube. eg

A sheet of paper will significantly reduce the alpha particle count so if the count rate drops when you put a sheet of paper over the window then it is detecting some alphas.

There is a highly inaccurate method of capturing the daughters on a filter and monitoring them over time. I'd use the plastic etch pit method if I really wanted to know. But I live in one of the UKs least likely radon affected zones on top of solid clay. Handy UK map

?p=1158934607718

If you are planning to make a DIY sensor there are some fun patents as well as lots of jump on the bandwagon ones... this one for instance:

And references therein.

Regards, Martin Brown

Has your spooge receptacle requested that you to move the bed there yet?

(I don't wanna brag... but I need a big rubber no matter WHERE the location.)

ies to

thanks.. my real question is why doesn't a standard BETA responding gieger counter work well to detect Radon progeny..

see

there are 2 BETA decays for every 3 ALAPHA decays and BETA is much easier to detect witin a matter of minutes..

So why can't I use a standard BETA detecting Geiger counter?

Here are some other interesting links

also see wikipedia which has an interesting plot showing lung cancer rates DECREASING as radon levels increase,for low levels..

Again my key question isn't a standard Geiger Muller tube that detects BETA and GAMMA effective at dececting the BETA decays of Radon's progeny?

Seems like if you held the geiger counter near dryer lint or dust collected on the TV screen or furnace filter etc and see no significnat increase in the background count, then there can be no significnat extra BETA decay going on...

no?

Mark

Would one of these with the lid cut off detect alphas either in an entirely dark basement, or with a Larkinesque amp that could filter out all of the ambient? ;-P

data/PNZ330CL.pdf

*!*!*!*!*!*! Watch out for the blank!!!!!! *!*!*!*!*!*!

Cheers! Rich

eg

You can, but it is hard to do accurately. First you have to capture your radon progeny and then monitor them as they decay away.

The alpha particle measurement is more direct.

They seem to be energetic enough to be detected. Unlike the betas from tritium which are too puny to really make a mark.

Probably. An old tube based TV set might be a reasonable dust concentrator (but only very recently captured dust is any good). Or the dust filter on your PC as another. Note the relatively short half lives of the species you are looking for - easy to get a big systematic error.

Secondary schools should have a Geiger counter capable of detecting alpha particles provided that they still allow those demos.

Regards, Martin Brown

I think picking up Alpha just improves response. You cannot detect radon in ordinary levels by looking at the counter. I need to set the integrations time on slow to measure small levels collected on filters. Initially I wanted to see if I could go around a find the bad spots. You make a portable detector with a fan sucking across a good filter, probably also has charcoal, and put the tube near the filter and it will effectivly increase ambient sensitivity many times. There is little resetting the filter once a high level is accumulated I think. It takes days for it to reset and the particles turn to lead.

Sealing the basement cracks with sealers helps a little but not enough to matter. If the floor is well sealed, it can still inter through the walls if driven up from the ground. The walls need sealed too.

I live on top of hill, and I thought that would be good, but evidently not. There is a mine shaft under my house like much of the Pittsburgh area, but I don't think that matters. Seems like that issue is brought up sometimes. I let my neighbor borrow my meter and his levels was above 4.0 or about 6 at the time. I really wanted to tell all the neighbors on the street about possible high levels.

I use the detector here.

I verified the accuracy with two other proffessional recordings. the "proffesionals" used a model from the same company, which needs a printout or download for printout verification. While measuring, the house needs windows closed and some interior doors shut.

greg