Granite counters have been proved to be safe. Again.

Toward the end of July 2008, The New York Times ran an article in its Home and Garden section about the supposed dangers posed by radioactive granite counters. Their piece was prompted by a concerted effort by an industry group that represents solid surface fabricators to prop up their dying product category by any means they could. So they took a bunch of information about normal, background radiation; dropped all context and pretense of real science, and embarked on campaign of fear-mongering and misinformation. Their efforts found fertile soil at the Home and Garden desk at The Times and so a public health threat was born. Never mind that wasn't a threat to begin with.

The Times story grew legs and fast. Within days I was fielding calls from people who were flipping out over the imaginary dangers lurking in their kitchens and bathrooms. I wrote about it a lot in the last year or so. I knew the whole thing was BS and wasted no time saying so. If you're interested in what I've had to say about this, click here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.


So rather than prattle on even more about it, here's an excerpt from Professional Remodeler:

Two new studies published in the scientifically peer-reviewed Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology show that granite used in countertops poses no radon or radiation threat to consumers.

"Based on the results of our research, we did not identify any slabs of granite intended for sale as countertop that would produce exposures that exceed health-protective limits or background levels commonly found in the environment," said Dr. Joseph G. Allen, of Environmental Health & Engineering, Inc., a principal investigator in both studies.

The science behind the studies was rigorously reviewed by independent scientists at the request of the Journal to ensure the studies are valid and used appropriate scientific methodology. Statements made by critics of granite countertops have not undergone this peer-review process.

The studies, published in the August 26, 2009 online issue of the Journal, conclude:

• The market share-weighted average concentration of radon in indoor air attributable to emissions from granite countertops was estimated to be about 400 times lower than the action level recommended by the EPA.
  
• Typical granite stones are likely to be a minor source of radiation dose when used as a countertop material within the home and present a negligible risk to human health.
  
• Critics of granite have suggested that granite countertops pose significant health risks. However, after a year of claiming to have scientific proof, no study has been published by a scientific, peer-reviewed journal that demonstrates a meaningful environmental exposure resulting from granite countertops.

And here's the abstract from the actual, published paper from an actual, peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Humans are continuously exposed to low levels of ionizing radiation. Known sources include radon, soil, cosmic rays, medical treatment, food, and building products such as gypsum board and concrete. Little information exists about radiation emissions and associated doses from natural stone finish materials such as granite countertops in homes. To address this knowledge gap, gross radioactivity, γ ray activity, and dose rate were determined for slabs of granite marketed for use as countertops. Annual effective radiation doses were estimated from measured dose rates and human activity patterns while accounting for the geometry of granite countertops in a model kitchen. Gross radioactivity,  activity, and dose rate varied significantly among and within slabs of granite with ranges for median levels at the slab surface of ND to 3000 cpm, ND to 98,000 cpm, and ND to 1.5E-4 mSv/h, respectively. The maximum activity concentrations of the ⁴⁰K, ²³²Th, and ²²⁶Ra series were 2715, 231, and 450 Bq/kg, respectively. The estimated annual radiation dose from spending 4 h/day in a hypothetical kitchen ranged from 0.005 to 0.18 mSv/a depending on the type of granite. In summary, our results show that the types of granite characterized in this study contain varying levels of radioactive isotopes and that their observed emissions are consistent with those reported in the scientific literature. We also conclude from our analyses that these emissions are likely to be a minor source of external radiation dose when used as countertop material within the home and present a negligible risk to human health. [italics mine]

I'm waiting for the rest of the mainstream media to pick this up but I'm not holding my breath.

The brilliant Richard Wiseman strikes again

Richard Wiseman is a former magician and now Psychology Professor at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Wiseman's renowned for his good natured debunking of paranormal phenomena and he writes an exceptionally entertaining blog. As a psychology professor, Wiseman writes a lot about how human brains perceive the world around them and his blog regularly features some really entertaining optical illusions. Check this out.

Stare at the center of this image and count how many circles you see. Stare for a while and watch what happens. I see four down the right side immediately and then three more groups of four start to appear, starting on the left side and appearing column by column until I see 16 circles. Once I can see the circles, I have to concentrate to break the image and see squares again.

This second one's a little more inactive and easy to see.

Human perception isn't infallible and these illusions illustrate that perfectly. Designers exploit this fallibility daily, at least this one does. Ideas like forced perspective and sight lines are grounded in the idea that human eyes (human brains actually) can be fooled pretty easily. It's some cool stuff.

Follow up from yesterday

At about three o'clock Tuesday afternoon I got a phone call from the same client who was panicking on Monday. I saw who was calling on the caller ID and braced myself for another round of "let's talk this woman off the ledge." Instead, when I answered the phone I was greeted by a series of rapid fire thank yous and choked back sobs. I'm not kidding. Apparently, the electrician had just left after having hung the final pendant light and she was at long last alone with her renovated kitchen.

"Everything's even more beautiful than you said it would be Paul, I'm sorry for being so much trouble." She went on, but that was the gist of it.

Boy do I love being right.

So here's the tile that was at the root of yesterday's melt down:

It's an inexpensive, $25 a square foot glass tile. The only thing unique about it is the shape of the individual tiles. From my perspective, it's still pretty tame. But by the standards of the development where this particular project took place, it is downright avant garde.

The client had her heart set on white cabinetry all along, and I suggested a sienna-toned white paint on a maple cabinet. Bright white is hard to pull off without looking sterile, so I always go with a tinted white to tone it down a bit.

She picked this granite. It's an easy to find Brazilian stone and it too is pretty basic. That wall tile was the gentle prod that room needed to make it something other than what all the neighbors do. A gentle prod, that's all it was. Due in a large part to that tile, her finished kitchen is a warm and inviting place. The textures and patterns are interesting but still subtle. I say anyhow and now that she's happy and will pay her final invoice, I'm happy too.

And the winner of the 2009 James Dyson Award is...

Many thanks for Saxon Henry, the Chair Chick, for alerting me to this yesterday on Twitter.

James Dyson makes spectacular vacuum cleaners. He's also an inventor, industrial engineer, industrial designer, a Knight of The Most Noble Order of the Garter and a philanthropist.

Every year, The James Dyson Foundation holds a world wide competition for Industrial Design students. The grand prize is £10,000 award to the winner and an additional £10,000 goes to the school where he or she studies. This years' winner was a team effort by Yusef Muhammed and Paul Thomas and it's brilliant. watch this video:




Here's a brief description of their entry by the winners:

Each year more than 60,000 fires occur in UK dwellings, resulting in approximately 450 deaths and more than 11,000 injuries. Automist is an automatic fire suppression system. It is designed for the kitchen, where 60% of domestic fires originate. Automist utilises “water-mist” which is a proven technology on ships and in factories. Water mist technology works well on both chip pan and electrical fires. The novelty of Automist lies in its modular design which means it is easy to retrofit. The stylish nozzle can be positioned underneath any standard sink tap, and is designed to blend in with your kitchen environment. In the event of afire, a wireless heat detector triggers an under-sink pump. Heat detection is the most reliable form of fire detection and the trigger is set at the industry-standard. The pump then drives mains water through the unique nozzle unit which quickly fills the kitchen volume with fog, creating an inert atmosphere of 30% water and suppressing the blaze.

Good job fellas.

Ready to renovate? Take a moment and breathe first.

I got a series of panicky phone calls yesterday from an otherwise rational client who was having her back splash tile installed yesterday. Back splash tile is usually the last element that gets done in a kitchen renovation and this client was in the final week of her six week construction project and she must have reached the point where she couldn't handle it any more. The material being installed was a glass tile we'd spent weeks selecting back in June. In fact, it was the first thing she picked in that whole process and it remained a constant through the whole selections phase of her project. Back in June, she was in love with that tile.

I dropped what I was doing and ran up to her job site to see what could be done. I'd sold her the tile and I wasn't going to take a return so what there was to do was calm her down. Over the years, I've found that the best way to counteract panic is to get even more measured and calm than I am usually. Inside, there was a knot in my stomach but I was determined to come across like the Dalai Lama if it killed me.

It took about an hour to talk her down from the ledge and let the tile setter finish his job. Her chief complaint was that the tile looked somehow different going in than it did in the mocked up sample I'd made over the summer. It took a little digging, but eventually I figured out that her tile looked different because it hadn't been grouted yet. My mocked up board was fully grouted and what she fell in love with was the finished tile. It never occurred to her that ungrouted tile would look so different from the finished product and I had seriously underestimated her inability to see the finished project as it would be rather than what it looked like when it was going in.

I have the vision thing, all of us do who are involved in any kind of work that involves designing how something will look eventually. Most people don't have the vision thing and that's OK. I strongly suspect that the vision thing is an aptitude --it's something you're born with. I go overboard accommodating my clients' inability to visualize their finished projects but in this case, I now know that I hadn't gone far enough. But when I look back and remember that this tile panic was coming on the heels of a lighting panic, a granite panic, a cabinet color panic, a hardware finish panic and a flooring panic I realize that the only way I could have gone further overboard would have been to put her on an airplane and sent her away for two months. I've spent a lot of time being the Dalai Lama since construction started on this one six weeks ago. It happens sometimes.

So the lesson here is to do a better job of identifying the people who need extra reassurance before they actually need that reassurance. If you're considering a renovation, keep a couple of things in mind. Now that I'm thinking about it, here's a list. Print this out and tape it to your fridge.

1. Any renovation job will cost more and take longer than you think it will. Don't start spending money until you have accurate estimates of the costs of everything associated with your job and the time frames it will take for all of your components to arrive and be installed.
2. When you're getting prices and someone gives you a range rather than a set price (this happens a lot with labor costs and it's perfectly normal), use the high price in the range in your budget. That way, if the total comes in lower than the high price, you get a happy surprise instead of a miserable one.
3. When someone gives you a delivery window or range (this happens a lot with lighting in particular and again, it's perfectly normal) use the further away date. So when you hear "four to six weeks" don't get attached to four weeks. Assume it will be six. Again, set yourself up to be pleasantly surprised rather than disappointed.
4. When you're getting ready for construction to begin, make a "safe place" somewhere in your house. If it's a kitchen renovation you're about to embark on, set up a temporary kitchen somewhere. Move a microwave, dishes, food, a coffee maker, etc., somewhere near a utility sink or into a bathroom so you can have everything in one place when you go to make something to eat or start your day.
5. Leave your bedrooms clear and uncluttered, don't use them for storage when you empty out the rooms being renovated. Keep your bedroom that way it is normally. After a couple of weeks of camping out in a bathroom and dealing with noise and dust, it's tremendously helpful to be able to go into your bedroom, close the door and retreat into normal.
6. Don't hover over the people who are working in your home. If you're working with a designer and a contractor you trust, let the people who work for them do their jobs.
7. Don't judge partially installed work unless you have the vision thing. In mid installation, nothing looks the way it will when it's done. Tile looks very different before it's grouted, kitchen cabinets look awful before they have counters on them, appliances are enormous when they aren't in position and dings and nicks in the walls get fixed at the end of a project.
8. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, that's normal too. Take a walk, get out of the house, breathe, call your designer. Don't panic. Ever. There's always a solution and just as there's always a solution, the only way you can find it is with a clear head.
9. You will spend a lot of money and be seriously inconvenienced but it will be worth it in the end. Anticipate in advance how you deal with messes and disruption and take steps ahead of time to prepare yourself, physically and emotionally.
10. Finally, your memory of your renovation will always be less traumatic than your experience of it. Count on it.