What’s Lurking in Your Countertop?
What’s Lurking in Your Countertop? - NYTimes.com
SHORTLY before Lynn Sugarman of Teaneck, N.J., bought her summer home in Lake George, N.Y., two years ago, a routine inspection revealed it had elevated levels of radon, a radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. So she called a radon measurement and mitigation technician to find the source.DETECTION Using devices like the Geiger counter and the radiation detection instrument Stanley Liebert measures the radiation and radon emanating from granite like that in Lynn Sugarman’s kitchen counters.
“He went from room to room,” said Dr. Sugarman, a pediatrician. But he stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, which had richly grained cream, brown and burgundy granite countertops. His Geiger counter indicated that the granite was emitting radiation at levels 10 times higher than those he had measured elsewhere in the house.
“My first thought was, my pregnant daughter was coming for the weekend,” Dr. Sugarman said. When the technician told her to keep her daughter several feet from the countertops just to be safe, she said, “I had them ripped out that very day,” and sent to the state Department of Health for analysis. The granite, it turned out, contained high levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays. “The health risk to me and my family was probably small,” Dr. Sugarman said, “but I felt it was an unnecessary risk.”
Thanks to all the people who sent this to me. The fact is that there’s really nothing to fear with regards to this. How often are Bay Area people at home anyway? The weather is beautiful, so you’re always outdoors - unless you work for a start up or VMWare where 14 hour days are mandatory. Radiation shmadioation.
A bigger fear IMHO would be not living in the Bay Area. Dragons lie ‘yond there.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Sure if you hold radon in your bare hand, it’ll burn you. But on the other hand, she could have turned her kitchen into a Radon therapy spa and become the new Jesus. Instant granite equity.
July 27th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Silicon Valley home prices slide to 2005 level
SALES ARE SLUGGISH, TOO, BUT AFFORDABILITY IS UP
By Sue McAllister
Mercury News
It’s a real estate milepost that would have sounded unbelievable just a year ago: One-fifth of the houses for sale in Santa Clara County today are now priced at less than $450,000.
And the median price of houses that changed hands last month fell from $791,000 last year to $670,000. The last time that figure was so low was in March 2005.
All of which raises the question: Has the bursting of the housing-price bubble translated into homes that are truly affordable for Silicon Valley residents?
Perhaps not quite yet - but we’re getting there.
“The upside of the correction is that we are on the way toward affordability,” said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “We’re finding out there are prices at which there are plenty of people willing and wanting to buy” in Santa Clara County.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I remember reading an interview with the late Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, in Vanity Fair if I remeber right. He extolled the health benefits of Radon therapy. He said something to the effect of “all my friends have been taking radon therapy for many years, and they’re all fine”.
The link at the end of this post shows another way of looking radioactive countertops; she could have taken an alternative view and extolled her kitchen as a healing environment in which the radon emissions treat diabetes, lupus, fibromyalgia and breast cancer. Radon therapy still has following in Central and Eastern Europe, and, unbeknownst to me until now, in the U.S. Imagine, your kitchen as a radiation lab!
http://tinyurl.com/radon-mine
July 27th, 2008 at 10:14 am
A social science study on radon therapy:
http://www.radonmine.com/pdf/radonandhealth.pdf
July 27th, 2008 at 10:28 am
If wages stagnate, unemployment and unemployment rise, and everything besides housing and wages goes up, how can even the government bailout help? Between inflation and an increase in taxes, it will take a much sharper “correction” to balance the market. I can only hope that history proves me wrong on this.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Lionel,
None of that is relevant to the real Bay Area. RBA is so supply constrained that reduced sales volume, even dramatically reduced sales volume, will not translate into a buyers market anytime soon.
Here’s where I think the opportunity lies: With reduction in new construction, construction cost should be heading down. The construction labor market is more susceptible to regional forces than local conditions (real estate, on the other hand, is local). As a homeowner, I’m watching for the right opportunity to build a 4000 sq ft home. To summarize, the oppoortunity is in: build low, sell high.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:45 am
“To summarize, the oppoortunity is in: build low, sell high.” I like that oppoortunity word you invented, RE. Definition: Poor business opportunity.
PS - Only 4000 square feet?
July 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am
From the article: “Personal injury lawyers are already advertising on the Web for clients who think they may have been injured by countertops”.
Burbed, you should ask these lawyers to advertise on your website, that could pay for the hosting
July 27th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Actually, radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. More so than asbestos. In many parts of the midwest, the average levels of radon gas exceed the EPA guidelines. Check out this article:
http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/11098756.html
In the Bay Area, we are at a moderate risk for radon. I would definitely test any new home for radon, asbestos, lead, etc…
July 27th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
MSG - Stop the misinformation. “Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer” is untrue.
Excerpts from the article you linked to:
“Lung cancer link established”
“The cause of his cancer might have something to do with high levels of radon gas”
“doctors aren’t sure what caused his cancer”
A link (as in “correlation”) has been demonstrated. Not a causal effect. The article only speculates on any causal effect. You instead asserted it as a straight fact. If you cannot make the difference between the two, you have serious reasoning and comprehension gaps.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Did you all notice where Radon Counter Lady is from? Teaneck, NJ. That’s just a hop, skip and a jump from here. Now I know why I’m drinking 64 oz of stupid every morning.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Why not harvest uranium from the granite and sell it for nuclear fuel? Then rent out the gutted kitchen to a college student. Income opportunity!
July 27th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
If Doc had granite counters, he wouldn’t have had to steal uranium from the Lybians and get shot in front of Marty. Think of all the troubles they could have saved themselves.
Hail radioactive granite counters!
July 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Radon presents significant risks, since it is a colorless and odorless gas, and therefore not readily detectable by a human. The radiation decay products ionize genetic material, causing mutations that sometimes turn cancerous. Radon exposure is the second major cause of lung cancer after smoking.[29] Radon gas levels vary by locality and the composition of the underlying soil and rocks. For example, in areas such as Cornwall in the UK, which has granite as substrata, radon gas is a major problem, and buildings have to be force-ventilated with fans to lower radon gas concentrations. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that one in 15 homes in the United States has radon levels above the recommended guideline of 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) (148 Bq/m³).[48] Iowa has the highest average radon concentration in the United States; studies performed there have demonstrated a 50% increased lung cancer risk with prolonged radon exposure above the EPA’s action level of 4 pCi/L.[61][62]
Cited from the EPA and the Wiki!
July 28th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Um, she’s in NJ. Why does she care about Radon? Shouldn’t she focus on the dragons, Burbed?
July 28th, 2008 at 11:06 am
DreamT: Actually, Doc stole plutonium from the Libyans. Alas, a granite countertop is unlikely to contain uranium in enough quantity to breed plutonium.
One major predictor of radon exposure in homes is climate: radon builds up when houses are all locked up against the cold—say, in Minnesota. I would guess that the exposure, relative to the quantity of uranium in the local rocks, is lower in the RBA, which, as we all know, is always sunny and warm.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Yeah, we don’t have to worry about no randon gas with the windows open all the time. Instead, we have to worry about what the heck leached into our groundwater supply and how close our homes are to the nearest Superfund site.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Prof - I stand corrected (there’s this guy on the IMDB comments who wrote it was uranium, the jerk).
Yes mutations sometimes turn cancerous and sometimes cause the person to heal. I don’t believe that anybody has a clue under which circumstances it would be one or the other.
MSG - Better