Safety Siren Pro Series3 Radon Gas Detector - HS71512 by Family Safety Products, Inc.

Safety Siren Pro Series3 Radon Gas Detector - HS71512 by Family Safety Products, Inc...

Grab Now Safety Siren Pro Series3 Radon Gas Detector - HS71512 by Family Safety Products, Inc. By Family Safety Products, Inc

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206 of 210 people found the following review helpful.
Believe it really works
By Stud
The documentation I got with my house showed a radon reading above 50.0 before a mitigation system was installed and < 4.0 after it was installed.
The radon mitigation fan broke and I falsely thought painting / sealing the basement floor (years ago) would stop the radon.
After plugging in this unit I got a reading (after a few days) around 10.0 and it went up day by day. I replaced the mitigation fan when the reading was around 20.0. This unit then showed the level go down each day (took about 2 weeks to get to safe level).
Highly recommend this considering you can spend $15.00 a pop on those radon testers you mail in. One I used said I had a safe level.

88 of 95 people found the following review helpful.
Works as expected, but documentation could be better
By A. Dulin
I bought this gizmo a few weeks ago to monitor the basement in our new house and see if it is usable as an entertainment/gym area. In the summer when we did the radon test the result came in at 2.4 . When I first turned on this device the result came in at 8.4 !!

That made me freak out a bit, but after re-reading the instruction I realized that placing the detector 2 feet away from the sump hole may not be the right thing to do. So, I moved it closer to the middle of the basement and reset it. After a couple of days the reading came in at 4.6 .

During heavy rains the device showed readings of as high as 5.9 and it went down to 4.2 during dry weather.

Before taking any drastic measures I decided to first do some common sense maintenance tasks on the basement to at least prevent radon from entering the living area upstairs. I taped up all the cracks in the HVAC ductwork that I could find. The radon reading slowly creeped up to 4.6 due to reduced ventilation of the basement, but at least none of it was going upstairs.

I called our house inspector who did the test and he pointed out that when we inspected the house there were storage cabinets over the sump hole and along the walls, covering up the "mother earth." So I placed a piece of rubber tile over the sump hole and the reading when down to 3.2 in a couple of days.

So, what's the moral of this story ? While I can't vouch for precision of this device I learned the following:

- You need to leave it on for at least a month before you get an accurate reading.
- There is no need to freak out over "mildly" high readings. First, the device is not that accurate. Professional continuous testing devices cost thousands. So, don't take what it says as an absolute measure. Trust, but verify. Second, the US EPA requires mitigation at 4.0 -- but based on my research European agencies require mitigation at 7.0 and in some parts of Canada as high as 20.0 .
- If the reading is mildly high, say between 4 and 6 like it was in my case, then common sense maintenance tasks may take care of the problem. For example, covering up the sump hole with a piece of rubber tile helped bring the reading down to under 4.0 for us.

What radon mitigation people don't tell you is that you can cut your radiation exposure in half just by circulating the air in your basement. Moving the air around encourages the plate-out (settlement) of charged daughter particles of radon decay. It doesn't reduce the radon itself, but it encourages the actual dangerous stuff to stick to the walls and furniture instead of your lungs. The decay of the daughter particles is measured in minutes, and not even days. There is a guy who patented a ceiling fan as a means of mitigating radon. So, the point is -- mild increases in radon levels can be mitigated cheaply, if not for free.

To conclude, I find this device useful in general as a tool for measuring earth gases entering the basement. Besides radon there is a lot more harmful stuff that may be seeping in that you need to worry about. Ground water carries all sorts of disgusting stuff and in some areas of the country mildly high radon levels are the least of your worries (think arsenic, mercury, MTBE, etc.) So, if the Safety Siren is telling you you have mildly high radon readings it probably means you have mildly high levels of all sorts of other disgusting crap in your basement. Common sense methods of circulating the air, covering up the exposure to dirt, etc. is enough to control the problem.

UPDATE 3/4/09: I realized that I had the device's power supply right next to it. Moving it away from the unit lowered the radon reading by at least 1.0-2.0 pCi/L . It is now consistently below 4.0 . This is a finicky little gadget. I wouldn't rely on it as the source of all truth about radon. TRUST BUT VERIFY.

120 of 133 people found the following review helpful.
Great product helped me and colleague reduce lifetime lung cancer risk
By Swiss-American Boy
Though the interface is a bit clunky the device really works great!
I would never again bother with those mail-in radon detectors again -- save to validate the machine -- as our device's values were shown to be the same. But, unlike those mail-in cans the results are delivered within the two days (the device needs that amount of time to calculate a moving average) instead of a month.
Thanks to the device I was warned of a 4.5 pico curie level in my basement. After having a radon mitigation system installed, the device showed the level dropping to 1.6.
A friend of mine, more out of curiosity, asked to borrow the device. He put it in his basement expecting nothing much. A few days later he heard a fire-alarm like siren coming from the basement. He'd forgotten about the detector. When he finally realized it was the radon detector he was shocked to find his basement had a radon level of 13! Now, he too has a radon mitigation system and the levels have dropped to around 1.0.
We calculated that we reduced our families' lung cancer mortality rates by multiples -- especially for my son whose lungs are more sensitive.

"...Mortality rate is usually expressed as deaths/100 over a lifetime of exposure (70 years 75% of the time). Does not tell you when the deaths occurred, just an estimate of how many.

4 pci/liter: 3% average mortality (e.g. 3 out of 100 people expected to die of lung cancer)
15 pci/liter: 10% average
20 pci/liter: 15% average mortality
200 pci/liter: 50% average mortality

Houses with upwards of 2000 pci/liter have been measured! Even these can be dangerous in the short term (10 years or less). Although these mortality rates seem very high, they are similar with those for things we accept as part of our everyday lives.

10 pci/liter is roughly equivalent to the risk of smoking 1/2-1 pack of cigarettes/day or having 500 chest x-rays/year.

Can also express risk as a loss of life expectancy. Tells you, how much something shortens the average (not your) life expectancy. Doesn't say when any individual will die. 15 pci/liter lowers the average life expectancy by one year (10% mortality). Smoking a pack a day reduces it by 6 years. Being 25 pounds overweight reduces it by 2 years. Automobile accidents reduce it by 2/3 years. Home and work accidents reduce it by about 100 days...."
-- GEO113 Radon Lecture Notes

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