[Anglib56789#]

I store nut coal in my basement and burn it upstairs. Trying to get my radon levels lower, I sealed my cracks in basement floor but the radon levels went up after sealing the floor. Did not install a fan yet. Does storing coal give off radon ?

 

[MTN REMODEL LLC]

I store nut coal in my basement and burn it upstairs. Trying to get my radon levels lower, I sealed my cracks in basement floor but the radon levels went up after sealing the floor. Did not install a fan yet. Does storing coal give off radon ?

Gosh....I can't tell you about coal...

But I can tell you that radon count varies significantly with climatic conditions,
cold/warm/high/low pressure, seasonal change,wind,rain, testing procedure etc.

It is not likely that you did anytyhing wrong in sealing cracks.

Good luck

(It's funny, people put fans in windows to ventilate radon, but actually they are creating a vacume effect that promotes radon intrusion.)

 

[Bud9051]

Hi Ang, so you will know, air sealing some holes can increase the leakage through others, it is one of the quirks of the stack effect. But more likely MTN's explanation that other conditions were responsible.

Bud

 

[Chris616]

Yes, coal can release radon gas. Radon is produced from the radioactive decay of uranium, so if the coal contains uranium, it will emit radon gas. See the “Lignite” section of this Wikipedia article on uranium ores. Lignite is a type of coal. There has also been research into the feasibility of mining uranium from the fly ash byproduct produced by coal fired power stations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_ore

Is the coal the likely source of the elevated readings in your basement? I don’t know. We’ve got a continuous radon monitor operating in our basement. The long term average varies between 10-25 Bq/m3, which converts to 0.27-0.67 pCi/L (the measurement system used in the US). I haven’t been able to correlate the variation to anything.

The level in our basement pre-mitigation was 1400 Bq/m3 (38 pCi/L).

Chris