was thinking of constructing a basement layout but wonder about this radon thing, perhaps testing for it as I would spend great deal of time downthere. Any thoughts on this ?
What the heck is radon?
Radon is very real, and many basement, especially those with poor ventilation, may be at high risk. Home Depot and other stores, sell Radon detectors. If you are conerned, you should purchase one and check out your basement. There are also many ways to vent your basement so that this carcinogenic gas can safely escape. There are also maps online from the USGS that shows the areas in red that are high in Radon gas in the ground.
Radon is an invisible radioactive gas that when injested, causes lung cancer.
You can find more information than you really want to know here: http://www.epa.gov/radon/zonemap.html
If you are concerned about Radon (and we all should have some concern) you can purchase dectectors to check your house’s level and your exposure (as suggested by grayfox). It is far more of a concern for those who smoke as that raises your risk of lung cancer considerably. Your basement is not the only place where you are exposed to radon, as all the indoor air in a home can have elevated levels of Radon. Good ventialtion of your home is one way to reduce the exposure level.
Radon is an element that is the byproduct of the radioactive decay of Uranium and other naturally-occurring elements. It’s not a chemical. It too is radioactive, and has a fairly short half-life. It gets into the lungs and can cause all sorts of problems. It’s the same stuff that killed off a lot of Uranium miners that worked the mines back in the '60’s.
You can get a detector and check for it. You open it up, leave it on the shelf for the proscribed amount of time, close it up, and ship it off the the labratory for testing. They’ll mail you back the test results. If needed, there are some standard techniques to keep the Radon out of your house. Ventilation and the sealing of cracks in the floor and walls are the basic methods of dealing with it.
Radon won’t hurt trains. 
Mark in Utah
Radon does hurt trains. If it kills the owner, the trains will no longer run.
First check with the public health folks in your area to determine if the subsoil in your area harbours radon. If there is no record of high risk, you probably don’t need to be concerned. If, however, other people in your area have the detectors, and the public health folks say that you should sample your basement air, then get the kit and do just that.
I don’t worry about it. I figure the risk of dying on the highway during my commute to work each day, or the risk of falling off my lawn tractor under the blades, or the risk of a heart attack from the stress of the house remodeling we’re doing, or the risk of my wife going nuts and coming after me with the chain saw (well, not really that last one! .[:o)]) or a million other things is so much higher that radon risk is negligible
True, except it meets any definition of being a chemcial that I know of (extreme nit-picking here - sorry). It is element No. 86 and has a halflife of about 3.8 days. It decays by emitting an alpha particle and becomes another element. This new element then decays be emitting another alpha particle and becomes a third element and so on for about (if I recall correctly) eight or so steps until it becomes a stable atom of lead, I believe. The alpha particles are a form of radiation. The way I understand it, this radiation may mutate the DNA in the lung cells, and if they are changed in a certain way, they may reproduce into a cancerous tumor.
The link to the EPA web site for radon given in a previous post is a good one to look at.
Many years ago I measured the radon in my basement and found it to be 6 to 8 pico curies/liter. The recommended maximum is 4. I had an open sump in the nasement floor. I built an air-tight box around the sump and put a 2 in. PVC pipe from the box through the basement wall to the outside to ventilate the box. A wall or two in the basement was just bare concrete blocks. I painted these with a watrerproof paint hoping to seal any pores. After doing these things, the measured radon level was 2 or less. So, at least sometimes, it is not very difficult to correct the problem.
Radon levels may vary day to day or week to week or even with weather conditions (barometric pressure changes). If you are going to want to measure your radon level, it may be wise to do several tests at various conditions.
I think radon can be a serious problem and it may be wise to check its level in one’s house.
Not every basement in North America is contaminated with radon gas,some huge vast areas have no radon detected, specific areas of the U.S. are affected, check with a geologist before you call for the cement truck to fill in your basement, and maybe cut back on those 2 pack a day sticks.
More governmental medling about issues that don’t amount to much if anything. I’ll bet nobody has ever known anyone who has gotten lung cancer from spending too much time in the basement. A divorce maybe but not lung cancer.
Both (Government/Divorce) can pretty well take all your money, hmm, so has anyones ex ever taken the train set as a settlement??? That would be cruel[:(!]
I first heard about Radon gas problems back in the mid-1980’s. Apparently, there was an area, I think in Pennsylvania, where many people were getting lung cancer and yet most had not smoked cigarettes. Radon in their basements turned out to be the problem and since then, radon testing has become part of the selling process for many homes in the country.
Back in 1984, I bought a radon testing kit and found that the amount of radon in my basement here in Connecticut would give me the same risk for lung cancer that smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day would give. Obviously, I needed to fix the problem. It turned out that all I had to do was caulk around the basement, where the walls and floor meet (there was a space there) and I also caulked a crack in the floor. After these rather inexpensive repairs, I retested the basement and found almost no radon.
I agree there are plenty of things that can kill us but ignorance of radon is not one you should live with. Do a test and fix the problem.
Mondo
There is also radon in the Southern Tier of NY, along the NY-PA border. Last I knew, testing, and remediation, if necessary, was mandatory before you could sell your home. We were lucky, we met the critera but had a friend who had to drill the slab, and install a fan-equipped vent pipe.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543
A couple months ago I actually bought some ho slot cars, and N scale trains, track and structures from a lady who said they were her ex-husbands, and he wasn’t going to get them back! [:0]
As for the radon, supposedly there are places here in Georgia that have that problem, but I figure since my basement has poured walls, a one piece floor, with no cracks or seams, and it never leaks any water, I’m not worried about the radon. Plus, the basement is well ventilated.
Radon in my basement is the least of my worries! I have so many different chemcals down there, the State of California would probably declare the place a bio-hazard!
Rotor
I knew a fella that had to sell his trains and split the money as part of the divorce settlement while SHE got to keep her Barbie doll collection!!! …[:(]
It is always the stupid things that you die from, the jealous husband in the nursing home with cause!
Will
While averages for an area may be low - they are averages, yours still might be high. Given the relatively low cost of test kits, everyone should test their basement.
Enjoy
Paul
I’d be more worried about Carbon dixode since the basement I sleep in has an oil burner, Infact i’ve made it clear to my parents that im not sleeping down there until we get one.