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Comment by rurban | Hacker News Reader

So it's caused by fracking? Or does this also happen in non-fracking regions?

It has nothing whatsoever to do with fracking. Radon is a by-product of uranium and radium decay. It is present to some level in just about any soil. It is also a gas at standard pressure and temperature, so it is slowly filtering its way up from deeper rocks through the soil and then out into the atmosphere. When you dig a hole, for example a house foundation, you create more exposed soil surface through which the gas can escape. Some aspects of a home also cause more radon to escape into a cellar than would escape through surface soil, like the suction effect of natural convection in the house due to daily heating and cooling. How much radon your local soil is producing can be quite variable due to random variation of subsurface rocks and other effects of local geology.

I was wondering about the spatial variability of radon gas emissions. Is it possible/likely for one house to report normal levels while an adjacent house might report high/significant levels?

In other words, if your neighbor gets a test and finds acceptable levels, would it still be a good idea to get a test/monitor for your house?

It is likely that a close neighbor will have similar soil, but differences in home construction can have enough of an impact on radon exposure that you can't quite treat a neighbor's level as an indicator as your own. Think of it like groundwater, if the water table is high enough then both of you have an equivalent risk of seepage and leaking into your cellar, but how those cellars or foundation slabs are constructed also has a big impact. If this is a cookie-cutter suburban development where all the houses were built using the same materials and same basic plan then they will probably have similar radon levels, but if houses were built at different times or by different companies at the same time all bets are off.

No, this is quite common throughout numerous regions as a totally natural occurrence. It is definitely nothing new or unique to fracking areas. It's especially likely in older homes with space below the floors at ground level. It's easy to test for it.

https://www.epa.gov/radon/find-information-about-local-radon...

Just local geology.

You can actually test for this on empty lots by keeping the tester under a flipped-over bucket (using the bucket as a cover).

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