Chinese drywall stinks!

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has a new section on their website dedicated to address concerns about Chinese-made drywall used in homes in the years 2006 and 2007. How widespread a problem this is remains to be seen. So far, there have been 365 complaints coming from 18 states and the District of Columbia.

From Consumer Reports:

Tests of the Chinese-made drywall conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that it contains at least three materials not found in drywall produced in the U.S. The tested drywall contained sulfur, strontium at levels ten times as high as in U.S. drywall and two other organic compounds generally found in acrylic paint that have not been detected in any U.S.-made wallboard.

“We now know there are three things in there that aren’t in other drywall samples,” said Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) who has been working to provide homeowners with relief. “We’ve got the ‘what’ and now we need the ‘why’—and, how do we fix it? In the end, I think all this stuff is going to have to be ripped out.”

People are noticing a rotten egg smell and that their copper plumbing and air conditioning coils are turning black. Clearly, that's from the elevated sulfur levels in the drywall. It's important to remember that this new cry is being raised by personal injury lawyers, so let the exaggerated claims begin.

So remember, there have been 365 complaints from people in 18 different states. But check out this copy from a personal injury attorney who specializes in Chinese drywall litigation:

The Chinese drywall housing crisis is spreading across this country. Tens of thousands of homeowners are suffering from contamination in their homes causing health problems and plunging property values. Defective Chinese drywall wrecks electrical systems, air conditioning systems, and exposed metal throughout your home. The sulfur contamination causes a terrible odor that will not go away, and creates a corrosive atmosphere that requires immediate attention. The members of our legal team are fighting for our clients across the country, including the battleground states of Florida and Virginia. Hidden legal deadlines in the construction or closing documents are shutting off many victims from making any recovery for this catastrophe. Don't let your dream home become a permanent nightmare: contact us for immediate legal assistance. 

I don't doubt for a second that this is a real issue and I'm not questioning that it's going to need to be fixed. But can we please proceed calmly? The sulfur is behind the rotten egg smell, but sulfur won't kill you. The potential problem here is the strontium levels, but strontium exposure doesn't have any glamorous symptoms. I'd be curious to know how it got there in the first place. It sounds like our great trading partners to the east are using fly ash to make drywall.

I know it's a lot to ask, but since I've already asked for calm, can we please learn a lesson from this too? First, it was lead in the toys. Then it was melamine in the dog food and baby formula. Cheap stuff from China has proven itself yet again, to be no bargain. Now, what steps can we take to avoid a repeat of this situation. Anyone? Anyone?

Jamie Drake, the King of Color

My great friend Kelly from Design Ties, had a sit down and interview with Jamie Drake this week. Jamie Drake is a Designer of Record, somebody other designers look to for inspiration and direction. He's also a pretty good interview subject.

This is Drake's Cabochon powder room for Kohler

Kelly's giving away an inscribed copy of his new book, New American Glamour. All you have to do is go to Design Ties and leave a comment after her interview. She's drawing the winner next Thursday, so get in while the getting's good.

Man oh geez!

Before:

After:

Here's the link: Lu Lu's Fluffy Ruffles. Someone sent this to me in the hopes of getting my blood pressure up. It worked. Who am I to knock somebody else's aesthetic sense though? You can do that yourself. Set yourself free Lu Lu, set yourself free.

Are my counters giving me a headache? Part two: radon and granite

Yesterday, I devoted a lot of space to answering a reader question about something she thought she'd heard about granite counters emitting a gas that gave her a headache and could make people sick.

She didn't know the words, but what she was asking about was Radon coming from granite counters. Yesterday's column defined the terms atom, radiation, radioactivity and radon. Now that I've established those terms, I'm going delve back into the topic and write about how Radon gets into granite counters and whether or not it's dangerous.

Uranium is a common atom in soil and rocks worldwide. Uranium is an unstable atom it sheds its extra parts to become Radon. Radon is a gas and it's also an unstable atom. As Radon sheds its extra parts, it forms four daughters. Inhaling these four daughter atoms in high concentrations and over a long period of time can increase the chances that who ever's breathing them may develop lung cancer.

So as I've been saying all along, Uranium, Radon and Radon's four daughters are all naturally occurring, common things. All life on earth is surrounded by these radioactive atoms and for the most part, they are harmless. It's a good thing they are because it is not possible to remove background radiation from the environment. Still with me?

Because Uranium is such a commonly-found material in the surface of the earth, anything that comes from the earth will have some traces of Uranium in it and will therefore be radioactive. Where there's Uranium, Radon and her four daughters are sure to follow.

How much Radon is in the environment naturally is dependent a lot of factors, the first being your location. Some bedrock has more Uranium and therefore Radon, than others. I found this map on the US Environmental Protection Agency's websites that shows the Radon distribution in the US. I know a lot of you who read this don't live in the US. I could not find a similar world map. If you're concerned about the Radon in your area, check with the environment ministry in your country.

In a lot of cases, these Radon hot zones also happen to be parts of the country with granite bedrock, but not always. Radon is a dense gas and it's heavier than air. It tends to pool in low areas and its presence comes and goes, even in a particularly rich Radon hot spot. Just because it's there, doesn't mean it's a problem. Radon is colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas. You cannot see it or sense that it's present. You cannot tell if you're breathing it either. Air movement makes it dissipate and that moving air dilutes it to the point of harmlessness. Radon can only be a problem if it's allowed to pool and in most homes, that can only happen in a basement. If you have Radon pooling in your unventilated basement, the only way to detect it is to have a Radon test performed by a Radon Mitigation Specialist. Radon testing is now mandatory in most parts of the US, and it has to be done every time a house sells. If it turns out that you have high levels of Radon in your home, then you need to have a ventilation system installed that's designed to vent Radon. It is not a big deal but Radon is something you don't want pooling in your basement. It's interesting to note that Radon mitigation systems are designed to dilute Radon, not eliminate it. Eliminating all traces of Radon is impossible. Please remember that.

Exposure to alpha particle radiation (that's the kind of radiation we're talking about) is unavoidable if you breathe air. But radiation exposure, like exposure to anything potentially dangerous, is a question of how much and for how long. Long-term exposure to high concentrations is the problem, not the radiation itself.

Granite comes from bedrock and some granites have Uranium in them. You cannot tell from looking at a slab of granite if it contains Uranium. Some stone yards are offering to send samples from a slab to a laboratory for analysis. If it makes people feel better, then why not? I say that it's unnecessary, but who am I to stop people from wasting their money?

It's not just me and my opinion here either. There is near unanimity in the scientific community when it comes to the safety of granite counters. Two leading authorities on indoor environmental exposures, Dr. John McCarthy, of Environmental Health & Engineering, and Dr. John D. Spengler,of the Harvard School of Public Health, recently concluded: “A considerable amount of research has been published in peer-reviewed scientific literature and all of it comes to the same conclusion: the levels of radon coming off a granite counter are not excessive and not showing any risk for the population in their homes.” Actual, peer-reviewed, real scientific studies show again and again that granite counters pose no risk to consumers. [1]

Now I've seen the YouTube videos of Geiger counters clicking away as they sit on granite counters, but those videos aren't really telling you a whole lot other than that there's radiation present. A Geiger counter can't tell you what kind of radiation it's detecting. When it comes to radiation threats, the kind of radiation means everything and the amount not so much. For kicks, I'd love to see some of these video makers hold a Geiger counter over some other common, radioactive objects. Smoke detectors, bricks, cinder blocks, Sheetrock, well water, spring water, ceramic dishes and other stuff that comes from the earth are also radioactive. Some foods like bananas and Brazil nuts are too. The potassium your body can't function without is radioactive, and so for that matter, are you.

I don't think that granite counters pose any kind of a Radon threat, though I'm sure some of them emit small amounts of Radon. However, there is simply not enough granite in a counter for the counter to cause a Radon problem. The real problem with Radon, if there is a problem, is in the bedrock under your house.

If you're concerned, by all means get some tests done. If there's a problem, by all means get it dealt with. The US EPA has a great website with a page dedicated to Radon testing and mitigation. At the end of the day though, I am confident enough that I will continue to specify granite counters (and bricks, and cinder blocks, and Sheetrock) and I will continue to hang out in stone yards.

Oh! And on a lighter note, there was a time in the not too distant past when Uranium, Radium and Radon were thought to be health foods. Radon was added to water to "fortify" it and Radium was available as a supplement. Most curious of all was that Radium was sold to men as a suppository. This box of Radium suppositories is from 1930.

Here's an excerpt from its accompanying pamphlet:

Weak Discouraged Men!

Now Bubble Over with Joyous Vitality

Through the Use of

Glands and Radium

". . . properly functioning glands make themselves known in a quick, brisk step, mental alertness and the ability to live and love in the fullest sense of the word . . . A man must be in a bad way indeed to sit back and be satisfied without the pleasures that are his birthright! . . . Try them and see what good results you get!"

Those suppositories are from a website called Radioactive Quack Cures. It's a riot and it ought to help put a new perspective on the Kenoki Foot Pads and Reiki Therapy quack cures of today.

[1] Independent research studies include those cited above, as well as:
• Al-Jarallah MI, et al. 2005. Correlation between radon exhalation and radium content in granite samples used as construction materials in Saudi Arabia. Radiation Measurements, 40, 625-629.
• NCRP Report No. 95. 1987. Radiation exposure of the U.S. population from consumer products and miscellaneous sources. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Bethesda, MD.

Reader question: Are my counters giving me a headache?

Help! A couple days ago on our local news channel, they was talking about granite counters put off a dangerous gas. Studies showed people was having headaches and a few other symptoms. I forgot the gases that it puts out. I missed most of this, but I get headaches all the time since we moved into our new house. We have granite counters. Do I have radon and is that what's giving me headaches? I read you every day. Thanks.

Oh Lord, this question makes me crazy because I hear it all the time. It's not so much the question that bothers me, it's the freak out that accompanies any discussion of the word radioactive. Radioactive is a hot-button word because we have an educational system geared to making good consumers rather than good thinkers. The result is a world filled with people ignorant of the science that makes it possible.

To answer your question, no, your granite counters cannot give you headaches. The gas sometimes emitted, in tiny quantities, by some granites is called Radon, and Radon can't give you a headache either. Further, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no studies that showed that people were getting sick from their counters.

This Radon/ radiation story is a mountain made of a molehill by a trade organization last summer. The trade organization behind it represents the fabricators of solid surface counters. Solid surface is a synthetic counter material sold under a variety of brand names like Corian, Hi-Macs, Staron and others. Beware any finding or study publicized by a trade organization or entity with a vested interest in a favorable result.

The best way to dispel this rumor that's rapidly turning into an urban myth is to shine a little light of science and reason onto it. So over the next day or so I'm going to do a quick overview of some basic physics and atomic theory. I promise to keep it simple and easy to follow. Stick around please. It's better to understand something so you can make an informed decision than it is to be afraid of something you don't understand. Don't you think? This is by no means a definitive lesson in physics. To make sure I'm not missing anything or misleading you, I've enlisted the help of Chris Forrest, a brilliant physicist from Manchester in the UK. Chris responded to my call for help on this topic via Twitter the other day and I owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. I know enough about this topic to get about half way there. The section about Radon is all Chris and this post wouldn't have been possible without his wise counsel and atomic know-how. Here goes:

All matter is composed of atoms. Atoms are the building blocks of everything in the known universe. Atoms are like little balls of stuff and if you zoomed in on a beach, some water, your dog or your son; eventually you would see that they are all alike in that they are made from atoms.

There's a dense lump in the center of an atom. The lump in the center is composed of two kinds of smaller particles called protons and neutrons. It's that nucleus that contains most of the stuff in the atom. There are other small bits that whizz around that center the way the earth whizzes around the sun. These whizzing bits are called electrons. For the purposes of a discussion about radiation and radioactivity, we're only going to talk about the component parts of that nucleus, the protons and neutrons.

Different atoms have different numbers of protons in their nuclei, and these differing numbers of protons determine what substance they are. These substances are known as elements. Every element has its own special combination of a certain number of protons and neutrons. Iron, gold, oxygen, copper and uranium are examples of elements. The particles that make up an atom are held together with something called atomic force. Atoms, and therefore elements, are extremely tough and the bonds of atomic force are so strong that chemical reactions can't pull them apart or change what's in them. However, there is a process that can meddle in this atomic world.

OK, so know you know what atoms are all about.

Most atoms are stable, and the protons and neutrons in their nuclei are stuck together very tightly.

Some atoms, if they are a bit too fat for their own good, have unstable nuclei. These atoms shed their extra particles in a process of decay called radiation. It's sort of like going on a diet. Just as you shed pounds until you reach a stable weight, an unstable atom's nucleus will shed extra particles until it reaches a state of stability. Since the name of an atom is determined by the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus, the act of shedding these parts turns the atom into something else. It is the extra parts and energy that are shed during this decay process that are known as radiation. An atom behaving, decaying, in this way is said to be radioactive.

Radiation and radioactivity are a natural, normal part of the way things are. Life on earth evolved in the presence of radiation and radioactivity, and all life on earth evolved ways to deal with it. We're surrounded by a low level of radiation at every moment and it's completely harmless. The occasional, higher doses we get from having an x-ray or flying in an airplane aren't remotely enough to do us any harm. Most radiation falls into this harmless category. There are some stronger forms of radiation that are harmful, but most radiation is not.

So there's a quickie description of what radiation and radioactivity are. See? Nothing scary and nothing too difficult to grasp. Right? Now, let me wade into what radon is.

Radon starts out as naturally occurring Uranium. Uranium is scattered through out the rocks and soil just about everywhere on earth. This type of Uranium is not the same as they type used for nuclear fuel or weapons, but it's still Uranium and it is an unstable atom.

This Uranium gives out radiation, and changes into a different atom. This lighter atom, however, is still unstable, and so the process of giving out radiation, and getting a bit lighter continues. Eventually, this slow and gradual migration of natural Uranium toward a stable state happens to reach a special type of atom. This atom is called Radon, and it's special, not because it is unstable and radioactive, but because it is a gas that is both of these things. As a gas, it can escape from the ground and get into the air.

Radon in and of itself isn't dangerous. However, as an unstable atom it's not the last stop in the chain of Uranium decay. After Radon decays, it turns into four different atoms that scientists affectionately call its "daughters." It is these daughters than can pose a risk to humans in some situations.

These daughters decay very rapidly and when they do they release an alpha particle. This is a type of radiation that is essentially harmless when outside of the body. This alpha particle can be stopped by only a few centimeters of air, or a piece of paper. However, if this type of radiation is produced inside of you (for instance in your lungs) then it becomes the most dangerous type. Because radon is a gas, it can be inhaled and this alpha particle can be released while it's inside some one's lung. The occasional alpha particle is unavoidable, the problem comes from repeated exposure. Repeated, high, internal exposures to these four, alpha-emitting daughters can increase your chance of developing lung cancer.

Radon and its four daughters are everywhere in the soil and in the air. Radon is another inescapable, usually harmless fact of life on earth. It seeps up from the soil and water and dissipates harmlessly in the atmosphere. However, when radon is allowed to collect it can cause a problem. This happens most often in basements. A basement's walls are below the soil level by definition and so the naturally-occurring radon in the soil seeps into the basement where it collects in a colorless, odorless, tasteless cloud. You can only tell it's there with a radon detector kit. However, if you spend enough time breathing in that radon cloud it could, over the long term, slightly increase your chance of developing certain lung cancers.

Remember that this is only possible if the Radon is allowed to accumulate. If you have Radon in your basement, a simple ventilation system is all you need to take care of it. The key is to prevent it from accumulating. Outside of an enclosed basement or the crawl space under a house, it is nearly impossible for Radon to accumulate. The EPA has a great website dedicated to a panic-free discussion of Radon, its risks and its mitigations. Give it a read if you'd like some more information on these topics.

So now I hope you have a basic understanding of an atom, of radiation, radioactivity and of Radon. Tomorrow I'm going to talk about how Radon gets into some granites and what there is to do about it.