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Constant Chatter Shopping Center - Safety Siren Pro Series3 Radon Gas Detector
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List Price: $159.95
Our Price: $119.95
Your Save: $ 40.00 ( 25% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Safety Siren
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Brand: Safety Siren
EAN: 0758773715125
Feature: US EPA Approval - The Pro Series 3 is an evaluated and approved radon gas detector
Label: Safety Siren
Manufacturer: Safety Siren
Model: HS71512
Publisher: Safety Siren
Studio: Safety Siren
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Features
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US EPA Approval - The Pro Series 3 is an evaluated and approved radon gas detector
Numeric LED Display - Range of .1 to 999.9 pCi/L
Two Display Options: Short-term average reading or long-term average reading
Audible alarm will sound if either the short-term average or long-term average reading exceeds 4 pCi
Installation - Unit must be mounted to the wall and plugged into a power outlet (10' power cord)
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Editorial Reviews:
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Electronic radon detector continuously monitors radon levels in your home. Features include LED display, continuous air sampling, and an audible alarm.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Be careful with the warranty for Safety Siren Pro Series 2 Radon Gas Detector
Comment: I don't know about the Series 3 warranty but my Series 2 failed and the company told me that the warranty is for JUST ONE YEAR AND requires proof of purchase. Be very careful of a company that washes its hands of its products after just one year.
Customer Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT...ACCURATE
Comment: Cant beat this thing for continous monitoring. Its been proven accurate also, within 1 point of lab tests every time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great product helped me and colleague reduce lifetime lung cancer risk
Comment: 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
Customer Rating:
Summary: Works as expected, but documentation could be better
Comment: 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Useful, but not accurate
Comment: I have used the device in short-term mode for the last few weeks, and have found it to be useful for judging general radon levels, but not the accuracy achieved by professional testing equipment. It registered 6.4 in my basement after we insulated the house. I had a mitigation system installed and the next readings were 1.0 after 2 days wait for the system to work. I decided to have a professional come in and do testing - and over the course of the 3 days he left his equipment to run, I had the Siren placed right next to it with a memory reset. His equipment, post mitigation, averaged 0.2, and the siren showed 1.0. Not a huge discrepancy, but one that would have prompted me to explore more mitigation options using the Siren alone, as I wanted the level in my house to be that of average outdoor air - 0.4. The EPA standard of 4.0 is just plain not safe - in fact they say that you should get it as close to .4 as possible. I will continue to use the device in my basement for the longer term. However, read the fine print in the manual about calibration. Professional units need to be calibrated to read radon levels accurately almost on a yearly basis. This unit can be re-calibrated for a fee of $75, and you need to send it back to the company. So it may not be very useful after a year, although it is cheaper to re-calibrate than to purchase a new one. I have also seen online that you need to vacuum out the grills on the unit once a month, as the glass technology used tends to let particles accumulate.
My suggestion is to back up your readings with a professional if you want to see dead accurate results. My professional test over 3 days cost $115. And if you have granite counter tops in your kitchen, do yourself a favor and have them test for radioactivity (and therefore radon). All granite contains uranium, I have found, and it could contribute to radon levels. Luckily, the absolute black granite I have had negligible radioactivity above background levels - but the possibility of higher readings is out there, if very slim. Peace of mind is of paramount importance to me though.
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