Career Path > Radiation Safety
Radium clock/watch safety? Radon specifically
Marlin:
--- Quote from: SpikeMe on Oct 17, 2020, 03:26 ---Thanks for the link. However the answer does not really address the question of the storing of such items and potential radon leakage from it. I might ask them my question
--- End quote ---
Personally I would not worry about it unless you live in an unventilated house. One of the biggest sources of radon exposure is an unventilated basement that is not well sealed. The radium danger is only significant if you breach the watch and scrap off of the watch face making the radium respirable. In general radon produced under the watch face decays before escaping the watch only a small fraction escapes. Note that in the study you cited part of it was done with the watch face removed. You can store it in a sealed zip lock bag if you are concerned or another air tight container.
RDTroja:
Take a short trip through southern Pennsylvania. You will get more radon there than a lifetime of owning a radium dial clock.
peteshonkwiler:
--- Quote from: SpikeMe on Oct 17, 2020, 02:51 ---Well I might investigate that thanks. How would one perform such a measurment ? And if there's probably nothing to worry about like the 2 of you said, how do you explain the massive amounts of radon gas found in the study ?
--- End quote ---
https://m.bestreviews.com/best-radon-test-kits
Please define "massive amount".
peteshonkwiler:
--- Quote from: Marlin on Oct 17, 2020, 03:43 --- Personally I would not worry about it unless you live in an unventilated house. One of the biggest sources of radon exposure is an unventilated basement that is not well sealed. The radium danger is only significant if you breach the watch and scrap off of the watch face making the radium respirable. In general radon produced under the watch face decays before escaping the watch only a small fraction escapes. Note that in the study you cited part of it was done with the watch face removed. You can store it in a sealed zip lock bag if you are concerned or another air tight container.
--- End quote ---
One of the problems with today's home systems is the sealing that has been done to minimize power usage for heating/cooling systems. These homes are ventilated, however the ventilation system supports the heating & A/C systems more than the habitat's. This is frequently a problem in brand new homes, with new furniture, carpeting etc that make people ill from the off gasing of these new materials.
To alleviate radon concerns while keeping a collection of radium timepieces, I would keep them hermetically sealed.
SpikeMe:
I'll cite the study :
"As described above, conservative and precautionary measurements of radon arising from a notional collection of 15 pocket watches, 18 wrist watches and a couple of miscellaneous items indicate that radon concentrations routinely exceed the UK HPA/NRPB Domestic Action Level of 200 Bq m-3 under conditions of high ventilation, rising to over 10 times that Action Level at lower ventilation rates."
"Our tests for radon demonstrate that a collection of watches with radium based paint can raise radon concentrations in a room where no radon was previously recorded. It is significant that the average concentration in this continuously actively ventilated room rose from negligible to over 200 Bq m-3, peaking at over 3000 Bq m-3 when the air circulation systems operated at reduced rates."
Seems pretty massive to me, although I don't know what they mean by high ventialtion. But I'll check a product from your link, the only way to know for sure is that I do radon measurments myself isn't it ?
(The piece is now sealed and stored in my garage)
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