Radon Gas Monitor

Radon gas is a leading cause of Lung cancer. Charcoal test kits only give you a small window view to your Radon levels. Radon levels vary over the year and change with the weather. I've only been able to find one inexpensive electronic radon gas detector. Unfortunately it isn't set up to collect data. I wanted to work with the local schools to collect radon and weather data to correlate. Monitoring Radon in the Home shows how to connect a safety-siren radon detector to the Internet to log/graph the data.

Nice.

4.1? Isn't that a bit high for a basement?

Excellent write up. Thanks. It was a great help when getting mine up and running: Monitoring Household Radon
In particular I wanted to quantify how much difference the radon mitigation made so I have been able to run the monitor before and after installation.

Interfacing to the LED all went pretty much as you describe and is much less silly than my first effort; taking a webcam image and using pattern recognition to read the displayed number! One slight oddity I have noticed when writing my software is that my Safety Siren's mode button behaves differently when it is in alarm state (>4pC/L) and when not. If it is in alarm then it shows the reading that caused the alarm (in my case LONG) and press-and-hold the mode button displays the other value only for as long as the button is held. When released the display reverts to the LONG value. When out of alarm state the button acts as a toggle as described in the user manual and a simple press alternates the display back and forth between SHORT and LONG. Not a big deal but it makes the arduino software a bit more complicated since it needs to handle both behaviours and of course you cannot press-and-hold for more that a couple of seconds or else it resets the memory.

moderator: removed a . after the URL so copying becomes easier.

Very interesting, makes me wonder how radon levels are here ...

Looks like the area around Cabauw is "high" (p9) but compared to the rest of Europe all of The Netherlands appears to be "low" (p10)...

http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/2013/AtmosEnvironManohar/2013AtmosEnvironManohar.pdf

I believe this claims building materials are the biggest source of radon for residents of The Netherlands...

http://publicaties.minienm.nl/download-bijlage/22178/1m112.pdf&ei=aIKBVNijOY2ayASHuIKYBQ&usg=AFQjCNEd7WmUCMbg_jNySXb5I0B3rfTy2g&sig2=HgGvCLRt5CrvA0XuSYZkEQ

Apperently near the main rivers and the lowest parts (polders) the radon level is highest but indeed low.

nafis:
Radon gas is a leading cause of Lung cancer. Charcoal test kits only give you a small window view to your Radon levels. Radon levels vary over the year and change with the weather. I've only been able to find one inexpensive electronic radon gas detector. Unfortunately it isn't set up to collect data. I wanted to work with the local schools to collect radon and weather data to correlate. shows how to connect a safety-siren radon detector to the Internet to log/graph the data.

Sunlight is by far a higher cancer risk than all the radon you ever get in contact with your entire life. But there are so many tools available to detect this radon gas levels. Do you ever tried any of those tools. if so let me know which one. i found this Tool https://beonhome.com/best-radon-detector/

albertstanley:
Sunlight is by far a higher cancer risk than all the radon you ever get in contact with your entire life. But there are so many tools available to detect this radon gas levels. Do you ever tried any of those tools. if so let me know which one. i found this Tool https://beonhome.com/best-radon-detector/

Similarly, the radiation received by commercial airline crew flying during the current very low sun spot time get much more radiation, and also applies to those frequent fliers.

Also, radon gas comes from decaying uranium which occurs in granite rocks, not other type of rock formations. When granite is used as a building material, it brings uranium and radon gas to buildings that would otherwise not have radon.

Paul

You can find uranium in much more rock type that you think and water also!
Some sedimentary and metamorphic rocks have uranium too.

Anyway just changing air usually mitigate risk a lot.