#43 - James McGrath: Understanding Radon Risks - Indoor Air Quality, Building Retrofits, and Ventilation Strategies

Why does Ireland grapple with higher radon levels than other countries, and what does that mean for our homes?

We unravel these questions with James McGrath, an expert in indoor air quality and building ventilation from the University of Maynooth. Learn why granite-rich regions are particularly susceptible to radon infiltration and how historical and modern building practices influence indoor radon accumulation.

Discover practical strategies for tackling radon, from installing radon barriers to ventilation systems, and understand the challenges of retrofitting older structures.

James shares his expertise on effective remediation techniques such as sub-slab depressurization and discusses the critical balance needed in ventilation to manage radon risks. With insights into the importance of regular testing, this episode emphasizes the unpredictable nature of radon infiltration and the need for ongoing assessment.

We also explore the impact of energy retrofits on radon levels, highlighting the challenges of increasing a building's airtightness without compromising indoor air quality. James sheds light on current research and projects aimed at understanding radon fluxes and risk factors, stressing the importance of testing before and after retrofits.

Together, we address the psychological barriers to radon mitigation and the crucial need for awareness about this hidden yet significant health risk.

James is an assistant professor at the University of Maynooth. He coordinates the Certificate in Science Programme and lectures on the undergraduate physics modules within the Department of Experimental Physics.

He conducts fundamental and applied research in the remit of the indoor built environment, focusing on indoor aerosol dynamics, air quality and building ventilation.

I've known James for close to 10 years and have always followed his work with interest, not least his fascinating research over the last few years on Radon and, in particular, the impact of retrofit on Radon risk.

James McGrath - Linkedin
James McGrath - University of Maynooth
Paper on Radon

Chapters

• 0:00 Radon in the Built Environment
• 14:15 Controlling Radon Gas in Built Environment
• 26:46 Radon Remediation Methods and Considerations
• 35:14 Radon in Buildings
• 42:24 Impact of Building Retrofit on Radon
• 49:34 Radon Risk in Buildings Retrofit
• 58:59 Radon Risk Awareness and Mitigation
• 1:10:57 Research Projects and Future Directions
• 1:27:22 Radon Conference Funding and Progress

Transcript

Simon: 0:00

Welcome back to the Air Quality Matters podcast. I believe we already have the tools and knowledge we need to make a difference in our built environment, and the conversations we have and how we share what we know is the key to our success. I'm Simon Jones and this is episode 43. Coming up a conversation with James McGrath. In this episode, we go back to basics on radon how it finds its way into our homes and what we can do about it. We also take an important look at Radon through the lens of retrofit.

Simon: 0:50

James is an assistant professor at the University of Maynooth. He coordinates the Certificate in Science programme and lectures on the undergraduates physics modules within the Department of Experimental Physics. He conducts fundamental and applied research in the remit of the indoor built environment, focusing on indoor aerosol dynamics, air quality and building ventilation. He's a member of the Icarus Research Institute, which focuses on climate change adaptation and mitigation. His activities include research in the field of the indoor built environment, where he focuses on indoor environmental quality, aerosol science and building ventilation. His recent work has focused on assessing climate change adaptation measures and implications of large-scale national retrofit. He's an active member of both ISIAC and the AIVC on the board and current treasurer of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate and the Irish representative and board member for the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre.

Simon: 1:58

I've known James coming up for 10 years now and have always followed his work with real interest, not least the fascinating tranche of research over the last few years on radon and, in particular, the impact of radon on retrofit risk. I think he provides some fascinating insights into this area and I couldn't wait to get him on the podcast to unpack some of these basic ideas but also get his perspective on this complex risk that should be of interest to anyone working with buildings and, in particular, homes. Thanks for listening. As always, do check out the sponsors in the show notes and at airqualitymattersnet. This is a conversation with james mcgrath. It's always interesting talking to somebody from Ireland about radon, because we've got such a problem with it here, haven't we really?

James: 2:51

Yeah, it is.

James: 2:52

I suppose that's one of the unusual things, interesting things about radon, but I suppose it's a challenge from the research side is it varies so much geographically.

James: 3:02

So in some countries it's I won't say not an issue, but it's a lot. The background levels are naturally a lot lower and obviously, as you said, in Ireland it is that big it's. I suppose our background level is significantly higher than the global average. We're probably nearly twice as high historically as the global average, which does kind of make it, I suppose, unique, quite unique to the country, and even compared to the UK, our national average is about four times higher compared to, I suppose, the rest of the UK, even though the close proximity to the two countries so it does kind of make it quite regional and even within a country it can be quite regional. So even within Ireland itself there are certain regions that will be high rate on areas and certain areas that would be, I would say, have a lower risk I suppose we have to be careful how we communicate it but that they would have a lower risk than, we'll say, other parts of the country.

Simon: 4:03

Yeah, there's a whole podcast, I think, on risk communication. Yeah, but it's one of those. I don't know if you even know the answer to this, but I'm guessing there are no countries that escape radon completely. I mean, it's part of the general geology of most areas, but it's fair to say that some areas would have significantly higher radon than others, isn't it?

James: 4:30

yeah, that's correct. Yeah, like as you say, it is geographical. But I suppose radon is interesting because I suppose we say, while radon is naturally occurring, it doesn't naturally get trapped indoors. So I suppose the building type and the environment plays a factor as much as the geology. So radon comes from the I suppose it comes from typically granite rock up and kind of it would say, invades a building from the soil up into the building.

James: 5:04

So it's a combination of the geology but also, I suppose, the building itself. So, for example, historically it hasn't been an issue because buildings have been so and I say historically, I'm talking this was a couple of hundred years, not in the last 20 or 30, but I suppose when buildings were so well ventilated, naturally, just to us was a poor design that the radon typically didn't build up into harmful concentrations. So, like in ireland, the background average is only about six becquerels and I suppose, just to put that in context, the reference level, or the, the level which remediation is required, is 200 becquerels. So outdoors in ireland is relatively fine, which is the same probably in most countries, because of dilution, but due to the combination of the geology and the building, trapping that radon is really where the problem comes from.

Simon: 5:56

Yeah, so it's not like certain areas are producing thousands of baccarals of radon and you just happen to be unlucky with your building location. The background levels are quite low. It's just that combination of a slow release of radon and the building trapping it and it building up like any gas. Nobody has a problem with radon outside. I assume there's no parts of the world where you're walking around getting irradiated by radon just by sitting on a rock for lunch, kind of thing.

James: 6:33

No, I suppose, where I suppose we've just been slightly careful of the word outdoors, because I suppose caves and elements like that which we might consider in an outdoor, they are in the broad sense an enclosed area where radon would accumulate. But in the general sense, if you're out in the middle, let's say, of the street or in the field or somewhere more rural above ground, shall we say, yeah, it's typically not an issue.

Simon: 7:00

Are you able to give the kind of basic 101 on what radon actually is for listeners that may not really have probably heard it but may not be in an area that it's ever been relevant, or it's just not something that's come up? When we're talking about radon in the built environment, what are we actually talking about? It's a gas, right?

James: 7:24

Yeah, so radon comes from?

James: 7:25

I suppose it's the radioactive decay from uranium and typically uranium would exist in small quantities, typically in granite rock, and I suppose it's when that uranium breaks down without getting into the physical mechanisms of the radioactive decay chain lines, radar, uranium would break down.

James: 7:45

Sorry, uranium would break down into radon to its natural decay process and as that decays beneath the soil, the radon is released and the radon, the radon gas, then kind of comes to the surface through, I suppose, diffusion and advection processes beneath the soil and in some ways the building. I suppose the analogy I would use is the building sometimes can act like a straw sucking the radon up into the building. Now it also kind of traps, traps it there as well, um, but that's kind of where the there is. That's, I suppose, combination effect of the building and the soil beneath it. Um, but radon, as you say, it is a gas, so it comes from the soil up into the building. But it comes up through we call like millimeter gaps in the soil or the fact even the foundation, so tiny, minuscule cracks. The radon can infiltrate from that beneath the soil up into the building fabric and into the, I suppose, the living spaces.

Simon: 8:39

Then and, as a gas, does it have any kind of specific characteristics that make it different to other gases that we have in our built environment, like carbon dioxide or oxygen or nitrogen? Is it heavy? Is it light? It's obviously finding its way into the properties, but once it's there, this is a ground floor gas problem, isn't it Predominantly radon?

James: 9:07

It's not exclusive to the ground floor, but I suppose radon does infiltrate from the ground floor into the building and from there it can diffuse upstairs as a rule of thumb. So we would generally say the radon concentrations upstairs are about half that of downstairs concentrations upstairs are about half that of downstairs. Now, obviously, okay, there's a whole, there's a whole. I suppose variability that can occur. But it can infiltrate upstairs, um, but it comes into the ground first and then upstairs in, so that we'll say in 90, the difference is.

Simon: 9:38

The difference is that, because of the nature of its source the fact that the source is the ground, therefore it's that less of it is going to be up on the upper floors it's fact that the source is the ground. Therefore, it's that less of it is going to be up on the upper floors. It's not that the gas is heavier than surrounding air, that it sits on the floor, or something like that. It's just that the source is in the ground. Therefore, you'll find less of it the higher up you go yeah, so.

James: 10:02

So radon is, I think, by its nature slightly heavier than air, but I suppose due to the natural convection of air, it does become reasonably well mixed in an environment. Yeah, um, but I just say it does infiltrate into the ground floor of the building and then from there works its way up. Um, yeah there is.

James: 10:19

There is exceptions, but they're. I suppose they're only where the ventilation from a building is pulled in a ground source and maybe for multi-story buildings that it could be vented up higher. But I suppose they're, in ireland at least they're. They're not.

Simon: 10:36

They're not the norm yeah, and I suppose, like any gas or fluid, it finds itself moving from one space to another because of pressure differences. You know it's being. It's finding its way out of the soil through gaps, into areas of lower pressure or less density, and it will find a route that. That's the trouble. It doesn't take much for it to find its way into a property. Yeah, and is it is. Is is the radon gas that finds its way into the property? Is it that that does the damage to us, that causes us harm, or is it a change of state of that gas in some way, in how we're exposed to it, that causes us harm? Is it poisonous as a gas, so to speak, or is it the radiation element of it that's causing the damage?

James: 11:33

so actually it's a good question. So actually, the radon itself typically isn't the issue. It's when radon breaks down. So again, this was without getting into too much physics of the radiation elements. It's basically when radon itself breaks down and if you inhaled it, if it breaks down when it's in the lungs.

Simon: 11:54

That's when the damage occurs.

James: 11:54

So radon itself is typically fine. But the challenge is the half-lives associated with the decay products are so small it's very hard to measure them. So we say radon has a half-life of approximately about three and a half days, just for sake of easiness. And so when that comes into a building that means it can stay in the building for about three and a half days on average, and then the average that means on average half of it would decay during that period. So I suppose if you inhale radon and it undergoes a radioactive decay, then those alpha particles are emitted directly into the lung and that's when the damage can occur. That's what some of the reasons why it's very much associated with lung cancer opposed to um other health effects are interesting.

Simon: 12:41

So it's not like um. It's breaking down in the space and it's irradiating through your clothes and into your body and that's what's causing you lung cancer, say. It's the fact that you're unlucky enough for the point at which you've inhaled that gas particle. It's broken down while it's in the lungs and it's causing damage to the delicate tissue in the lungs at that point. So you're not harmed by the radon gas in the room per se. So I'm guessing you're breathing in and out radon particles in very small amounts the whole time.

James: 13:17

It's just timing, it's just unlucky that if there's enough of it some of it will be decaying when it's in your lungs. Yes, and I suppose that's where it is linked to the concentration within the room and I suppose the, the prolonged concentration as well. So obviously it's concentration, but then the time, it's a the, the time of which it occurs, yeah, the continuous time you're in the environment. That's why I suppose there's kind of these multiple overlaps with them.

Simon: 13:46

Yeah, but I suppose at the end of the day, I mean, it's fascinating and I appreciate you don't want to make it sound too complicated, because it does sound pretty complicated, but ultimately the risk here is about the buildup of this as a gas, so that if there's enough of it in the space, you are going to be by the nature of breathing in and out so much you are going to expose yourself to that risk. So the more we build up in the space, the more of a risk there is. And we measure the amount of that gas not in concentrations of the gas but in the Bacarels the radiation it produces, don't we?

James: 14:28

Yeah? So, yeah, yeah, as you say. So radon would be measured in baccarals per meter cubed, um, at least in, I suppose, ireland and most of europe. That's our, our metric and as you say it is, it's a measure of the radioactive decay of it in one meter cubed of of that the environment. So, similar to most pollutants, we'd measure it in a metre cubed per area, similar as opposed to PM, but in terms of radon we measure, as you said, in terms of the radioactive decay processes over that span.

Simon: 14:56

Yeah, because it's quite a straightforward measurement. That measurement we can do that quite cost effectively. I mean sorry it sounds like an exam grilling here, James. Mean it's sorry it sounds like an exam grilling here, james, but it's. I mean it's genuinely interested. Do we know how much of the radon gas is typically in a home, like in, in how we'd measure other gases, like parts per million and things like that of the gas itself, like is it? Is it in of an order of magnitude of what we'd expect to see? I don't know carbon dioxide at 0.04% of the gas or 400 parts per minute? Do we know what the kind of parts per billion or parts per million of radon typically is in the space, Because I only know it as a measurement of back rails. I've never really seen it expressed in terms of quantity of gas.

James: 15:49

I don't know the answer to that. That's actually a good question.

James: 15:54

That's given me some homework to go off and think about. Yeah, I should say any time we've seen it. It is just reported in terms of the radioactivity of it rather than the physical concentration of it, but I suppose, like most pollutants, it's linked with the harm, I suppose, of the PM. It's the epidemiological evidence that follows. It is where the SI units of it comes from, which now I suppose intrinsically, I would say from the Becquerel's per metre cubed. We could work back and figure out what the physical quantity of that is in the actual room itself, but off the top of my head I don't actually know.

Simon: 16:36

Yeah, but other than an exercise in knowing at the end of the day if it has no relevance to us, then what's the point?

Simon: 16:41

It's like me asking what the parts per million of argon is in a space. If it means absolutely nothing to us. That what's the point? It's like me asking what the what the parts per million of argon is in a space, you know. If it means absolutely nothing to us, what's the point, you know? Yeah, it's not a pollutant in of itself. I don't know, actually, if argon is or not. I'm assuming it isn't. Um, but um, yeah, that's, that's an interesting one. So so, when it comes to managing the risk, we can't affect the breakdown of it into its isotopes and its radio radioactive part, but we can control it as a gas. So what we're trying to do with radon if radon is going to get into a home, is deal with it. I'm guessing in very similar ways we deal with other pollutants as gases in our built environment, and that is ventilation and barriers and engineering controls and other things like that.

James: 17:33

Yeah, yeah, so I suppose. So I suppose one of the first steps with radon and I would, I would say we probably use this in the broad, in the broad spectrum is kind of source control. So the idea would be to stop radon, ideally before it ever enters the building. So typically that will be done either through radon barriers, which will be a protective seal over the building. The idea is to create an airtight seal that would stop the radon actually infiltrating from the soil into the building itself. The other aspect, then, is different, uh, mitigation measures or what's some remediation, whereas the radon could go into a sump and then it would be vented from beneath the soil or beneath the we call it the foundations. That essentially there's different layers of piping and there's a for all the world tends to purposes a box under the ground that the radon would get flow, would get sucked into this box and then vented outside before it would ever enter the building, and then outside it just becomes diffused into background concentrations.

Simon: 18:35

So effectively, just ventilating it away before it gets through a membrane or into the building itself.

James: 18:42

Yeah, I suppose the challenge we have is a lot of the regulations to reduce, I suppose, to we'll say use for what I'll take the term source control to stop it coming into the building are typically only around what's in the last 20 odd years give or take. So in ireland our radon membranes have come in from. They came in the regulations in 97, but then they were effective from bills from 98 onwards. So I suppose buildings pre that level wouldn't have had a radon membrane in place. And it's very difficult to install a radon membrane afterwards because you essentially can't get that. The idea is, if you think of it like a bed sheet, you need to get it over the bed and tucked in at all the corners. So when you have existing walls in place it's very hard to do that.

Simon: 19:33

Yeah, impossible, I'd imagine, particularly because it can just leak through any small gap. You're just not going to be able to close off every cavity and junction and so on. I mean for anybody that knows construction or has seen construction happening, when projects are at their foundations. Well, in this country anyway, many people see a big red sheet over the foundations at some point before more concrete is poured and other things happen to it, and that's that's what we mean by the radon barrier. It's like a very thick, damp, coarse membrane that that's put over the entire foundation. I'm right and understand.

Simon: 20:14

I mean, my assumption was with those radon barriers that that was it when you had a radon barrier. That was very effective protection from radon getting in. But that's not the case from what I understand. It's only the first part of the jigsaw puzzle. When I built my own house and I assumed, because I had a radon barrier, radon wouldn't get in. But it does, and quite a lot of it. So radon barrier is just a part of the control mechanism, isn't it that we have to almost turn on often?

James: 20:48

Yeah, and I suppose, if we think about it in the slight analogy of ventilation, is we can use ventilation to remove, say, even cooking events, but we still have to have additional mechanisms in place. And I suppose, similarly to the analogy of the radon membrane, as you say, it is quite effective but it's not always the only solution that's in place. I suppose there has been research that's done that has shown that it kind of reduces the radon levels by up to about 50% on average. Now I suppose what we have to take into account with this is that's, I suppose, the average afterwards. So I suppose there was work done in Ireland and we could see, I suppose, the reduction levels afterwards.

James: 21:31

But what we don't know is have some of those membranes not been installed correctly or there's been issues of the rips or tears or various elements afterwards and they're not. So we don't know, for example, if half of them aren't working at all and half of them are working 100%. But on average we know. Now, okay, the reality is it's probably somewhere in the middle, because I suppose bear in mind, when you put down this membrane, it can stay as a sealed block, like there's going to be different piping and different structures that will probably need to go through the membrane to vent out other, even um water or other kind of waste pipes going out of the building. So I suppose they are. Once that membrane is punctured then it has to be appropriately sealed up then again afterwards and yeah specific training to do that, but there are.

James: 22:22

There is all these, as with additional aspects that come into play yeah, of course you know anybody that's seen those slabs down.

Simon: 22:30

You know there's wire mesh chucked on them. People are walking around on them, particularly where they fold over the, the edges for the damp riser and so on. They get caught and stuff bashes off them. It's going to be very difficult from start to finish to protect the integrity of that entire membrane. So, like I say it, could be somewhere in the middle. There's almost certainly going to be some damage, I would imagine, in most construction to that membrane.

James: 22:57

Now, actually there's been a lot of work done in Ireland recently, particularly at a national level and a policy level, to roll out training, I suppose, suppose to minimize any damage to the membrane, I suppose, to make awareness of it. But then, as you say, if gaps or holes need to be created in the membrane for genuine reasons, how the training then is to seal that back up properly and try to get that airtight membrane back installed.

James: 23:23

So there's been a lot of work, I'd say, in the last okay I'd say five to seven years don't quote me on that because my sense of timelines have kind of started to merge or blur in recent years but that so I suppose we are seeing it's becoming more and more effective. And I suppose the added aspect if I'll jump on to another part just so we talked about when the regs changed to 97 one was the barrier, but the second part is the sump that went in and really the sump is very effective in, let's say, most buildings. So if there's an existing building that doesn't have a barrier, a sump then is very effective to reduce it. Um, in newer builds they nearly go in now as a default. So, for example, if you find you have a radar level in an existing building or, sorry, I should say, a new building, I will say since then 98, that if you have an issue it's quite easy now to mitigate it because you already have the sump in place. So all you need to do is basically turn that from a standby sump into an act, either a passive or an active sump, and then that will mitigate the, the radon, very effectively.

James: 24:29

Um, yeah, I suppose. Just give one example. I know of that. Um, I was involved in a previous study and we were measuring one house and we're actually seeing radon levels on the order of up to nearly 2000 becquerels, so obviously extremely high, 10 times the reference level. And once we informed them of it, they turned their standby slump into an active slump into an active slump and within about 12, within 12 hours, it had nearly dropped down to less than 100 becquerels yeah, wow like over 48 hours that suddenly went from an average of 2000 to a short-term average of 36.

James: 25:05

So it is very effective. Um, yeah, obviously, you know, in older builds it's a bit more of a challenge because you need to try to drill down and create, I suppose, a mitigation measure, but it is still effective. It's just that little bit more um of a, I suppose, consideration. If it's a standby sump, you could nearly any of us could nearly do it ourselves, or it's fairly easy for a contractor to do it. Obviously the older bills it. Just you need to, I suppose, drill down and install that sump. You're this. Well, sorry, not ourselves but a registered contractor, but I just talk in general. That it's. It can be done quite, quite easily, but it's just not, as was, as easy with the new builds.

Simon: 25:45

Yeah, and for listeners, I always had a misunderstanding about the sumps, I suppose, because I'd seen them go into new builds and typically they'd go somewhere central in the slab and they'd be ducted to the perimeter just with typical wavin with soil pipe and it would be there. You have an access point to activate that sump if you ever need it. So when I when I heard, when I was thinking through remediation, in my head I had this picture of people having to dig up the middle of your floor, in the middle of your house, and run a pipe to the outside to do something similar. But that's not the case at all. The remediation is somebody drilling under the perimeter of the, the, the outside wall, into under the slab, and they might do that in two or three locations around the property and I can't imagine it's as effective. But it's pretty effective from what I understand. But it's nowhere. It's almost entirely an outside the property job. It's not as disruptive as you might imagine. No, no.

James: 26:47

Yeah, and all it is, as you say, it's just drilling down to go below the foundation so you can create a negative pressure below the foundation and suck the radon out before it enters the building. So essentially you're, if you want to call it, short-circuiting the building aspect.

Simon: 27:03

Yeah, and assuming we've got all of that in place, or we haven't got that in place and we're now dealing with radon that we find in the property, what are the other typical things we're then thinking about to try and minimise the build-up of this gas over time? I'm guessing it's just providing decent or adequate ventilation to you know the the regular removal of air in the space just to stop it building up that. Yeah, I'm guessing that's got to be one of the fundamentals here yeah, so I suppose.

James: 27:36

So, after essentially the, the barrier and the sump, then ventilation is the next, I suppose the next, protocol. Yeah, typically in places where I suppose ventilation has a was a complex we call it, we'll say a complicated relationship with radon, because radon comes into the building to a negative pressure, depending on the ventilation approach. So if you overly negatively pressurize the building you could actually just essentially increase the influx of radon into that building. So I suppose the ventilation approach needs to at least consider the consequences of that. The increase in the ventilation rate might combat the increase in the radon rate and you still might get a net positive effect. But I suppose it is something just to be mindful of. But typically the increased ventilation should always have a net benefit, I suppose.

Simon: 28:33

Yeah, that's an interesting way. It's just will it have as much of a benefit if it's creating a negative pressure than if it was neutral or positive? And I think that's where there's quite a bit of confusion in the industry from what I understand it, because I guess it's just very difficult to predict that, on the one hand, if you, if your starting point is very poor ventilation, very little air exchange and you've got some radon getting into the property, the provision of any ventilation negative, positive or otherwise may completely sort the problem out because you're now removing it before it builds up. But if the, if the quantity of radon is fairly high coming into the property, there is a tipping point, like you'd have to.

Simon: 29:22

Yeah, yeah, at some point the negative pressure that you're creating to create enough air change rate to get ahead of the radon curve is a law of diminishing returns at some point. I guess and I I know I've seen quite a few studies and they've all been fairly mixed from what I've seen of the impacts of positive or negative ventilation systems on radon, because it's not just the complexities of the how much negative pressure you may or may not create, or positive pressure you may or may not create, it, it's the air paths, knowing where the radon's coming in. The it's a it's a complex world, isn't it?

James: 30:07

air movement and pressures and things within the built environment anyway, so it's quite a hard thing to predict yeah, and I suppose we'll say from a purely academic perspective, it makes it quite interesting because it's so complicated that there's always more nuances to look at, I suppose, as a public. I suppose the flip side is to convey it as a public message. It can be hard to convey a simple message that's still factually correct. Yes, because if you simplify it too much you run the risk of missing the nuances of, would say, the different pressure systems, of the negative and positive pressures and how they might interact. So I suppose there is that balance sometimes between the two. And, yeah, I suppose the other aspect is, for example so I'm like your home might not have an issue and your, your neighbors might, even if you're in the same housing estate.

James: 31:03

So I suppose the only real way to know is to test, and I suppose absolutely regardless of any price, regardless of how much we know, it's very.

James: 31:14

It's really impossible to make a prediction in, I would say, an accurate prediction. I should say, obviously we can make various levels of predictions, but to fully understand whether a building is below or above the threshold in any location, the only way to really is test that, because you don't know whether, you don't know how the membrane has been affected, you don't know of any gaps or soils or beneath the soil, um, like there's been, I don't know one study that was done, um, I think it was in ireland, where they looked at, I'd say, at least six or seven houses in the same housing estate. There was two of them were below about 100 becquerels. There was another two between 100 to 200. And there was at least another two or three more that were above 200.

James: 31:55

I think one could have been above 400 or 500. And that's within. We'll call it a same geographical area all houses built at the same time. Call it a same geographical area all, all houses built at the same time, all with a similar level of occupancy. So there is just such very, there is just such variability in it, due to very localized conditions, that the only way we need to know is to test for it now, yeah, and it's the only way of knowing that if you've done something, whether you've had an impact on it or not either.

Simon: 32:23

So there's no point remediating anything if you don't know what your starting point is, because you need to be able to understand whether you've had a success or not.

James: 32:32

Yeah, all that says it's not to say that we can't understand things better and we can't create that relative risk and have a better understanding of the likely impacts and where to target interventions. But on an individual level, the only way to know is really to test and I suppose yeah, we say fortunately come in a positive aspect with radon. It's quite easy to test for radon even at an individual level compared to most other pollutants. Yes, yeah, because we can specific.

Simon: 33:01

We can specifically capture it. It's something that's not precisely measurable because the way we measure it it's always going to take an average over time. But at least we know we're measuring that precise thing, as opposed to a proxy or a mix of other confounding factors. And the other thing, the interesting thing for me about radon as a very unique risk in of its own right is it is a risk and risk is not eliminatable. People's tolerances of risk will be different depending on other risk factors. So sometimes we can get very caught up in the preciseness of exactly what needs to be done. Caught up in the preciseness of exactly what needs to be done, but not saying the hierarchies of control. But there is an order of things that, if you're in an existing home, you're not going to be able to impact, whether or not you have a membrane or not. So there are some things that you can do that are very straightforward, and the first one is make sure you've got adequate ventilation. You know the best way and the cheapest way to mitigate radon is to make sure that the thing you've already got there for providing decent ventilation in your property is doing what it should do. And if it is and it's more likely than not that it isn't. From what I've seen, you can fix that, but let's just say it is. Then the next thing you can do is to activate a sump if you've got one it's a very straightforward thing to do or look at remediation with sumps, and if that still isn't doing it, then you might look at changing ventilation systems to specifically target areas with positive pressure or something. Um yeah, so there's an order of things that you can. There's a list of things that you can go through. Some of them are just about making sure your building's doing what it's supposed to do in the first place, and then about activating something if it's there and remediating with sumps if you have to. The challenge, as I say, is a lot of properties probably just aren't ventilating enough anyway, and if you've got some radon, actually providing decent ventilation in a space might be enough.

Simon: 35:14

There's a funny story of a friend of mine who's a ventilation expert, who lived in a house with radon and he installed his own MVvhr system in his property and he spent many years with radon sensors everywhere positively pressurizing, negatively pressurizing, positively pressurizing this bit, negatively pressurizing this bit and I think the general conclusion he came out two years later not really any the wiser than when he started him, because he'd push it down one area and it would pop up somewhere else and it negatively pressurize it a bit more here and it would come up somewhere else in the property and the thing was radon was just coming in his house, you know, and the adequate ventilation or manipulating ventilation wasn't doing it.

Simon: 36:07

Just there wasn't anything he could do with because he had complete control effectively over the pressurization and movement of air in the property and he just it just kept coming in. It wasn't helped by the fact it was literally built on a granite slab, I think, and in parts there were no, you know, the foundation was the rock, you know. So he was kind of stuck, yeah, and I suppose it's like typically any pollutant.

James: 36:36

We would say source control is probably the first and best approach if possible and it's not always possible but I suppose ventilation with radon is probably should be really our second approach because even if you can die, it's better to try remove it at source before it comes in than absolutely try adapt ventilation with it because, as you say, it will just vary so much depending on the individual location and that the building type. And I suppose in your case your friend, obviously being a ventilation expert, knew enough knowledge to be able to do this and he struggled to manage the problem. So it is the general, the general person would really struggle to try be able to do that yeah, no, absolutely and I absolutely.

James: 37:22

But really the only way to know, I suppose, unlike most pollutants which we can have some sense of. So if we take PM you can sometimes have a sense if there's a high PM concentration in a room, or we know we can get a sense if there's a high humidity in a room. But with radon we've no way of knowing. It's a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas. So any of us right now could be in high concentrations and have absolutely no way of knowing. The only way to actually to know for radon is to test it and the quantity that will come into your home.

Simon: 37:57

It's a fickle gas anyway, even at the best of times, I mean, depending on which way the wind's blowing, whether it rained or not in the last 12 hours, whether you're on a hill or in a valley, or this side of a river or that side of a river, I mean it's, I mean anybody that. I mean. I've measured it, obviously, in my property with both passive samplers, which, for listeners, are like little hockey pucks that you put and it just absorbs the, the radiation over a period of three months, and the electronic sensors, the air things type devices. When you actually monitor radon in real time, it does you nothing because it goes up and down like anything. It's crazy.

Simon: 38:40

I mean, I'm on top of a hill, so every time it rains it seems to wash the radon away. So in the wet weather my radon just goes to zero, just absolutely falls through the floor. But if I have a sustained dry period you can start to see radon building up. You get to learn it specific to your property. There will be a pattern depending on various environmental conditions often, or the level of the water table. It's amazing, isn't it, to see?

James: 39:15

Yeah, and I suppose we'll go back to a purely academic perspective. It is really interesting to look at all the drivers and the mechanisms that do influence us. But I suppose some of this is the reasons why a radon test, at least in Ireland. It varies depending on country, but typically the norm would be at least a two, if not a three-month, passive measurement. Now, sorry it could be active, but at least a two or three-month measurement of radon and you look at the average across that that period. Um, yeah, so you can account for these broad fluctuations yeah, I mean.

Simon: 39:53

So the question has to be asked, james. I mean, it's incredibly complex, like in real terms, to both predict and understand and mitigate. Um, why on earth did you think of trying to figure out how to model this stuff? Um, because of all the things that have a range of variables, that's a hell of a task to take on to start to figure out. I wonder if I could model that in some way and model the risk, because that's effectively what you did, wasn't it in your some of your work was to go. Can I, can I come up with some predictors and try and understand what increases and decreases the risk here, and is it quantifiable in some way?

James: 40:40

yes. So I suppose, maybe just to so for the sake of clarity. I suppose we weren't trying to model the absolute radon, we were trying to really look at the sensitive day driving factors that might influence. So if we had an established baseline of a theoretical value we were to see then what drivers would change those radon concentrations.

James: 41:02

So I suppose just like we weren't necessarily trying to, as you say, model it if there was a high rainfall and a low rainfall, because I suppose for intensive purposes the radon flux would be the same, but the driving forces within the building were changing, Got you? So it wasn't that you?

Simon: 41:19

were trying to predict what the radon level was going to be next Wednesday in my house. Exactly Not that kind of thing, no.

James: 41:26

No Shame, but I suppose in the broad sense not yet at least. If you find me enough money I can try to do it, yeah, but I suppose from a broader perspective, we're really trying to look at what the implications from, we'll say, particularly at least in Ireland, but obviously has global significance was energy renovation strategies and particularly in the context of air tightness and ventilation. What were the implications for radon under those scenarios? And in Ireland, having a, we'll say, a naturally high radon level that we were, I suppose radon level um, that we were, I suppose there was a concern as to what were the implications and how could we give best advice following an energy retrofit strategy in buildings, to understand the implications that these might have for radon while I have you, I just want to briefly talk to you about ultra protect, a partner partner of this podcast.

Simon: 42:24

Look, they're not here by accident. Like the podcast, they are passionate about driving changes in our indoor environment and are an all-round great company to deal with. Ultra Protect provides cutting-edge technologies and services focused on air quality and dust management. They have years of experience in the industry and a team of people I have leaned on on many an occasion for advice and insight. From continuously tracking air quality to specific sampling, they analyze and provide actionable insights in the built environment. Specialising in dust management, they provide amazing products and services that minimise risk and improve environments, from construction sites to offices, to manufacturing settings, through to solutions around ventilation aimed at improving the environment in the long term. It's a company well worth checking out. There are links in the show notes on airqualitymattersnet and, of course, at Ultra Protect UK. Now back to the podcast. So break down some of those concerns for me. So I'm guessing the obvious one is that we're taking existing structures and making them more airtight would be one.

James: 43:49

Yeah.

Simon: 43:49

What were some of the others. So it's the fact that we're fundamentally doing some things to some buildings that would have an impact on the risk, is it?

James: 43:59

Yeah. So I suppose this comes back to maybe one of my earlier points, because I suppose, as we change the air tightness of the building which I suppose is one of the fundamentals drivers of an energy retrofit is to reduce the uncontrolled heat losses, airtightness of the building fabric you could actually be making that building. Obviously you're going to make it more airtight because you could also be enhancing those negative pressures so you could be reducing the airflow into a building but at the same time increasing the radon flux into the building. So there's a, there's a, I suppose a double, there's potentially a double whammy.

Simon: 44:40

That could be happening, yeah, so you're losing the infiltration, but you're also potentially changing pressures and things within the building. Is that because the buoyancy when you make a building warmer, it's lower pressure effectively, so you can be bringing the gas in that way as well so some of us actually.

James: 44:59

We did look at the impacts of the temperature difference on as well and we actually found the temperature difference didn't seem to be as much of a driving force. I suppose the element is, when you're changing the building fabric, you're changing that pressure differential between the inside and the outside, particularly with the different various meteorological conditions. So, for example, if you have the windows open, any change outside will be reflected inside relatively quickly. But the more airtight the building becomes, um the the more of a change outside will be delayed inside. So you can get more of a negative pressure inside compared to outside and that can actually increase the radon flux into the building yeah, okay, and potentially reducing infiltration.

Simon: 45:45

And you looked at ventilation as well? Was that right?

James: 45:48

Yes, yeah. So some of what we looked at at the time was specifically the recommendations in Ireland at the time and we modelled those scenarios under the code of practice for energy retrofitted buildings and to see what were the implications for that. And we particularly found that I suppose it was the buildings I suppose the older buildings, shall we say that were never designed with infiltration in place. So if we take buildings from the 60s, 70s and 80s where they were never designed with intentional ventilation or, sorry, I should say purpose-provided ventilation, that in some ways at the time the buildings were leaky enough that there was sufficient advantageous infiltration, so at the time they were still getting enough, probably airflow, but it wasn't really by a specific designed inlet in the building fabric yeah um.

James: 46:40

So I suppose when we looked at the simulations we were able to look at the changes in air tightness of the building, but also then combined with the introduction of purpose provided ventilation, and in reality actually what we found was that once the two measures were implemented, that there wasn't really a net change in radon under the scenarios now that we looked at at the time. So at the time again, I suppose some of this work is probably going back, oh, I'm gonna say seven or eight years. So at the time we were still very much looking at kind of more shallow retrofits and we hadn't gone to that deep level of retrofit. So we were looking at air permeabilities on the order of anything from 15 down to the order of five meters cube per hour, per meter squared at 50 pascals, and then with the different ventilation requirements that could be installed at those stages yeah, yeah I suppose that that.

Simon: 47:37

That's the. That's the really complex thing here, and I suppose why the modeling's of value is that you've got several things happening at once in a renovation, haven't you? That can both positively and negatively impact the outcomes. So it's you're trying to really predict. You know, on balance, if my building leaked like a sieve and I had loads of unintended ventilation happening and I start to do a retrofit, but then I add purpose-provided ventilation, trying to predict what the outcome is going to be is quite difficult. It's those kind of combinations of confounding factors that it's very difficult practically to work out what the result was.

Simon: 48:27

So were you and this was were there some good, solid general findings then out the other side of this. Were you able to say from that research that, look, we think doing these things broadly will have this kind of an impact?

James: 48:41

yeah. So I suppose where we were able to look at it was under. Again, I suppose we have to generalise these findings. We can't put them, I suppose, to an individual building type, but we were able to look at them and kind of put buildings maybe into three different categories. So I suppose we kind of looked at what was the national reference level at the time of 78 Becquerels and to see, in reference to that level, so wherever I say I suppose buildings below and above that level, what was the potential implications. And I suppose we could identify where an existing, I suppose an existing radon level pre-retrofit, where we're more likely to exceed the reference, that the reference level of 200 post retrofit, depending on the different levels of air permeability and ventilation that were achieved.

James: 49:34

And it was really buildings where the building had become more airtight but there was no purpose provided ventilation installed. Well, I'll just be installed and maintained, because I suppose we know from antidotal, antidotal evidence that while the ventilation can be put into these buildings that we know, unfortunately some people do have a habit of blocking it up afterwards because I suppose they they don't realize the importance of the ventilation. All they see is we've spent all this money on getting the building more airtight to keep the heat in and you've just gone and put another hole in the wall again. So that's probably a very that's an oversimplification of it. But from the general public sometimes there can be this misconception or the lack of awareness of the ventilation. And if that gets sealed up or again, it was never put in in the first place. They were the buildings that were really at high risk of the radon increasing post retrofit um yeah, not the only ones, but they were the.

James: 50:35

Obviously they were the major ones and it makes sense if you think about the less ventilation, the more likely it is to accumulate in the building and I suppose it radon. Is this slightly unusual pollutant in a broad sense, a unique pollutant, and we've talked about it saying it's not an issue outdoors, but in the general sense it's not an indoor generated pollutant either. So probably in the broad sense it's probably an outdoor pollutant, even though it's not the outdoor air. It is an outdoor pollutant infiltrating into the building but it's not linked with the outdoor air coming in and it's not an issue in the outdoor air.

James: 51:15

So even though it's an infiltration of pollutant, it's only an issue indoors and typically with an outdoor pollutant, the greater the ventilation rate, the more you're dragging in that pollutant.

Simon: 51:28

Yes, yeah, that's true, if we think of traffic emissions.

James: 51:32

If you open the window, you're going to reduce the infiltration of indoor pollutants, but you're also going to increase the infiltration of traffic emissions or any sort of outdoor into the building, where radon is nearly the opposite yeah, and a good one, a good, good analogy.

Simon: 51:51

There would be ozone. You know like ozone isn't really a problem outdoors to us, not in of itself, um, but where we bring it indoors from outdoors and it builds up or interacts with other gases. Yes, radon doesn't interact. Radon doesn't interact with other gases. It doesn't kind of combine with stuff and cause trouble. It really is just it's in of itself it's a problem. That's what makes it easy to measure, isn't it? We're not.

James: 52:18

Yeah there's no air chemistry going on per se yeah, so two.

James: 52:23

I'll answer that in two parts, uh okay, first part yes your first part is yeah, you're correct, it doesn't as a gas itself. It's. It's a noble gas, so it doesn't interact with any other. There isn't secondary chemical, chemical reactions in the air. But where we do find with radon is, for example, with smokers. So if somebody is a smoker and they live in a high radon area, the the health, the the risk of radon is increased. Sorry, the risk of lung cancer is increased tenfold because it was the. The idea was is for smokers. The lungs are already going to be essentially been damaged from the smoke and therefore the radiation in the lungs will obviously be amplified. So I suppose radon itself doesn't have secondary reactions as a gas with the air but in terms of the health, effects.

Simon: 53:15

It is amplified with smoking. Yeah, interesting. And I suppose while you can quantify the risk of the building side no-transcript we don't know how much is coming in In those calculations. We're taking a normative value or an average or something. But it's a bit like trying to model risk for COVID. We don't know if there's one infectious person, five infectious people, how infectious they are in those models. It makes it very difficult to be precise about an outcome. So, similarly with these radon calculations, like you say, house to house, very difficult to be precise about an outcome. So, similarly with these radon calculations, like you say, house to house to house can be different.

Simon: 54:06

So this is really about what's the general impacts of the building side on risk. We can't know how much is coming in in the first instance. Is it a bit like infection risk in some ways that the risk on the building side is amplified, or it's the other way around? Is a high levels of radon in a property going to amplify those risks, those changes you make to the building? So when you were doing your models, if instead of 70 baccarals as the background rate, you had 500, how much more harm risk did those various measures have? It'd be interesting to know, like if you've already got radon and you're intending to do some retrofit, it's going to be significantly worse for you. It's not a straight curve yes.

James: 55:02

So I suppose, yeah, as you said, the higher the radon, obviously the the greater the potential risk after an energy retrofit scenario.

James: 55:10

That because it would increase and you would see, I suppose what we were interested in was we particularly were interested in the cases that were already below the radon threshold, because I suppose there was, in our view, and again because I suppose we felt that if the buildings were already above that, the 200 becquerel mark, they already required retrofit measures. So I suppose, regardless of whether it was 250 or 2,500, the building should be remediated. Now we're not saying that I suppose certain ones should be prioritized over other, like, obviously we should prioritize 2,500 over 200. I'm not suggesting that. I thought we don't do that, sorry, but what I mean is if a building is already above 200, it needs to be remediated, regardless of how much it's potentially going to increase by through energy retrofit scenarios yeah if that makes sense now, I suppose absolutely

James: 56:09

yeah, and I suppose really the ideal situation is where we can now and this is where I suppose we're trying to develop the research a bit further is look at the buildings that will say sit in. I was, uh, I'm trying they, as was nearly the I want to call. I want to call it the goldilocks, but I suppose it's probably it's the reverse, it's the in, it's the bad goldilocks effect, whereas they're the buildings that are. I suppose if we say they're below a threshold, they're unlikely to exceed it post retrofit, so they're while theon goes up. It's not a substantial amount to be of concern. If it's already above 200, then I suppose the ideal situation is they will be remediated during the retrofit scenario. But I suppose the uncertainty is if they don't know it's there or they've chosen not to do it to begin with, then it's hard to know how much that will be addressed afterwards. It's really the buildings that are in the range where they're below the reference level pre-retrofit but that they're likely to exceed it post-retrofit.

Simon: 57:19

Yeah, and practically, what are those numbers? James, if you're in a low radon zone and you do a radon measurement and you're below 20 baccarals, you're fairly good, I guess, and there's a limited chance you're going to be above 200. But I'm guessing there's a point I don't know whether it's 100 or 150, where fairly small changes could tip you, and that that 200 baccarat is a like, it's a. Although it's a low, it's a threshold. As we were saying earlier, radon goes up and down an awful lot. If you, if you're measuring 150, it could easily the next day be 400 and the day after that be 70 like. So this is an average.

Simon: 58:01

Um, yes, and that's where they where where in your head is that gray zone, the, the orange zone, if you like, of risk? Um, that where you, where you get a measurement, you go. Look, we need to pay attention here. We need to at least have a plan.

James: 58:16

Oh, you're asking me a very difficult question and I suppose the challenge?

James: 58:21

I suppose I don't. I'm not deliberately avoiding the question, but I suppose the challenge is it's what's what retrofit measures go with what? So, for example, if we were talking shallow retrofit measures, so relatively mild measures, I would say below 100 becquerels is likely to potentially be okay on a on a on an average scale. There will always be buildings on an individual scale that we that could amplify. We don't know, but I would say on a shallow retrofit scale, I would suspect buildings below 100 on a on the laws of averages, the, the majority of them, should stay below at least 200 post retrofit umfit. The challenge is as we start to go to deeper energy retrofits, the answer is I don't know. We're actually doing some of that research at the minute. So if you invite me back in two years' time I might be able to give you some more definitive answers on that question.

James: 59:12

And some of that is what we're trying to explore at the minute and also be able to explore, I suppose, how it affects the I suppose the region, depending on the region they're in, but also the, I suppose, the building characteristics. But it's amplified and I suppose I want to actually slightly just backtrack for a second. When I say region, there's a twofold characteristics here, because there's the geographical impact of where they are from the radon potential, but there's also the meteor. They are from the radon potential, but there's also the meteorological conditions of the radon and some of the simulations we actually found.

James: 59:47

whether you're looking at an urban or a coastal region, you could see up to 30% or 40% variation in those radon changes due to the surrounding meteorological conditions Interesting, okay yeah, which the coastal regions obviously think if you're more exposed, there is that greater potential for enhanced pressure differentials and stuff throughout the building, got you?

Simon: 1:00:13

So there's an exposure value risk. So the higher the exposure value of buildings, the more risk there could potentially be. Yes, interesting.

James: 1:00:22

Just breaking all this down. The problem is there's so many multiple factors of this it's hard to kind of zone in a specific category. But I would say if we were to kind of give, I suppose, as a rule of thumb, I suppose based on my best knowledge at the minute, I would suggest buildings below 100 are less likely to be of a concern, buildings between 100 to 200 are. I suppose what I would suspect is the buildings we need to try, I suppose, investigate further because they're already at a level where the radon levels are above the national average and exceedances could push them above the 200 becquerel mark. And then I suppose the other flip side is, if they're already above 200, then they should. They should be doing mitigation measures anyway, regardless of what that value becomes post retrofit.

James: 1:01:15

Um, yeah, I suppose what we, what we need to do, is really zone in on where this value of like. If we're saying 150, yes, they're very likely to exceed radon post-retrofit if and again, all this is if appropriate ventilation measures are considered. Yeah, and again, I suppose the only way to know like we could take 100 houses below 100 and 95% of them could be fine I'm using the word 95% purely to include a number, so nobody hold me to this, but there will always be exceptions to this and this is where, unfortunately, the only way to know what radon is to test.

Simon: 1:01:57

Like some of this stuff is pretty straightforward, like it's quite, it's quite yeah, like sorry yeah, like if you've got high levels of radon and you're planning to do some stuff for your building. Don't be an idiot. Have radon remediation as part of the plan for your building, and any contractor or individual organization that doesn't think that way probably shouldn't be involved in changing buildings. Likewise, if you're at the other end of the scale and you're in a no radon zone and there's no evidence of radon in your property and you're planning to do some retrofit, you probably don't have too much to worry about. I wouldn't lose any sleep over this.

Simon: 1:02:38

The challenge is, as always with risk, is the gray area and where those numbers start and stop, but probably doesn't really change workflows, and that is if you've got some radon in your property and you're planning to do some work to that property, have a radon plan, measure the radon when you've finished and then, if you have to remediate in some way, it's not a surprise, but at least you know what it was when you started and you've had a plan and you enact the plan and you can measure it at the end. That's just sensible. So, like, this stuff isn't rocket science, but it all starts with knowing what you've got before you started. And so I think and this is the challenge, isn't it right now? I don't know of a country at the moment that mandates radon tests before retrofit work is undertaken in areas of high radon, and for me that's just. I don't understand that personally.

James: 1:03:41

It's a known risk.

Simon: 1:03:43

We know its health impacts. We've probably been underestimating it as it goes. From what I've seen, we may be doubling those values over the next few years, but it's a known risk and it's not a small risk. This is lung cancer we're talking about. Potentially so if you're doing something to a building that presents a risk of lung cancer and you haven't got a plan, that just seems bananas to me. Um, but there's this weird thing about radon, isn't it? And that is it affects property prices. People don't want to know. You can't give a test away in most countries and certainly when people know the results, often they won't remediate. Anyway. It's, uh, yeah, it's a bizarre psychological thing.

James: 1:04:32

Radon for people, yes, yeah isn't it and I think, I think it, as you say, even when people find out that they have a radon problem, it's to do a mitigation measure. And I think, even with the people with the best will in the world, I think, because there's no physical presence to remind them of it. So if I take the analogy of mold, if you walk into a room and see mold on the wall, it's visually repulsive, so you'll do something about it. And even with radon, if you're aware of it, even though you plan to take action, day-to-day activities in your lifestyle can take over and you go oh, I'll do that next week, I'll do that next week. And because you don't have that, we'll say stark reminder when you go into a building or it doesn't affect your physical comfort, it's easy for that to get pushed back or slip off the agenda altogether?

Simon: 1:05:24

Yeah, and I don't know if there's any evidence of radon affecting a property price practically so, I mean as it stands at the moment, I could sell my house tomorrow knowing that I've got high levels of radon and I don't have to inform the next purchasers of that fact. And maybe people's concern is having a sump pump on the outside of your property is a visual reminder that you may have radon in the property and the fear is that that might affect their property prices. But I don't know if practically that stands true, whether there's any evidence that having a sump pump on the outside of your property does affect the property price.

James: 1:06:12

Personally, I'd feel quite assured if someone Well, I suppose ironically it's the reverse and I can understand the logic and the logic that the ordinary person might follow. But really, if there's a sump in place, it means that actually they're aware of a radon issue and that they've reduced it. So if you see a sump in the building, you should be actually reassured that it's unlikely to have a radon problem because the mitigation measures have been put in place, Certainly in Ireland where there's as good a chance as not.

Simon: 1:06:46

Your property is in an area with some radon, so that should be a reassuring sign. It's an interesting one that I know I know you've quoted to me before studies. I think that was over in galway where they had considerable funding to do radon research and they struggled to even give the tests away to people to.

James: 1:07:13

Yeah for the study people just don't want to know. Yeah, and I think some of it, I think I don't necessarily know if that was exclusive to radon um, because I suppose to engage people in any sort of, would say, study, in general, there's a whole site, there's a whole psychological approach about how you need to engage participants and try to get buy-in. And I think I think at the minute, because people are being bombarded by so much stuff that it's kind of easy for them to go, oh, that's just another survey, or that's just another aspect, and or they go, oh, I must do that and forget to get back to it. Like, I do know, um in in broader studies, the difference between having a, would say, a handwritten envelope versus a stamped, or sorry, a printed um, a printed name and address, the uptake. I don't know the figures, but I do know there is a significant difference in the uptake and willingness of people to participate, depending even on that much of the envelope.

James: 1:08:11

So, I don't know if those studies were just exclusively because it was a radon study or it was broader aspects in general, but regardless it is hard to get people to participate in these aspects and follow through with remediation measures and and in some cases there is genuine reasons why, of the cause of it, but it is, I suppose it is something that where these barriers exist, we need to try to explore those barriers and try to reduce them. Yeah, whether it's awareness, whether it's financial issues or whether there's other incentives needed.

Simon: 1:08:43

Yeah, in my head it's a bright yellow envelope with a radiation sign on the front of it. That would get people's attention, that would.

James: 1:08:51

That's very true.

Simon: 1:08:55

Going from the wrong tack is a nice flowery handwritten note from an academic versus a bright yellow envelope with a radiation sign on it.

James: 1:09:03

I wonder which one I'm going to open first yeah, they might be afraid to open the other one inside. Yeah, true.

Simon: 1:09:11

You were saying you were working on, uh, a study at the moment, uh, on radon. Again, you're looking more deeply into certain aspects of it.

James: 1:09:20

You were saying yeah, so I suppose the first study you quoted was one that we looked at a couple of years ago I think it's going back to 2015, 16,.

James: 1:09:29

That was funded by the EPA and at the time it was very much looking just at the idea of the shallow retrofits which were the dominant, I suppose, retrofit strategies at that time, where now we have a follow-on study which is to try and look at the implications of deep energy retrofit strategies and particularly different ventilation strategies that go with them.

James: 1:09:48

But the idea then is to try and map that against a representative portion of the Irish building stock. So, as I suppose we've kind of mentioned, there was different factors based on the geology, which is the geogenic radon potential, which essentially just means the amount of radon that could enter a building. But I also mentioned that the physical meteorological conditions in that region could also have an impact. These various different characteristics, and it's supposed to have a matrix, combination of all these implications but then weight them against the buildings in these different regions, combined with the different retrofit strategies associated with them. So the idea then is we could start to look at which regions are at greater risk of exceeding the radon potential post-retrofit and that way we could better inform mitigation strategies or awareness campaigns of where buildings should be targeted to try to reduce them or at least make them greater awareness at the time of the energy retrofit scenarios.

Simon: 1:10:57

Interesting, and is that a project that you're doing through maynooth university or through yeah?

James: 1:11:04

so, uh, so I'm leading that project now. Yeah, no, I'm sorry, so I am. I'm leading that project now through maynooth university. Um, that one is funded again by the epa or the irish epa particularly with this was the radon aspects. But there is collaborators on it from both the University of Galway and Dublin City University. So DCU, a statistical perspective, and then also, I suppose, a building physics perspective and a health economist perspective. So we're trying to kind of bring the broad spectrum together oh, really interesting.

Simon: 1:11:42

What's the time frames for this piece of work? Is that something that's got a near?

James: 1:11:48

so what completion it's a three-year project, so we're kind of about, I think, nine, ten months into that project at the minute. So at the minute we're very much, I suppose, I suppose, still trying to reanalyse historical data to see if we can better understand the radon fluxes into buildings. That will then enhance our model parameterisation capabilities to allow us a better representation of the building stock. But we will have the. I suppose it won't be that everything will just come out at the end. There will be kind of, I suppose, a sequential process. So some of it we'll be trying to understand at a building scale and then be able to build that up. So hopefully we should have different results appearing over the next three to six months. So watch this space.

Simon: 1:12:32

Yeah, no, it sounds really interesting and I think Radon is fascinating and so relevant to so many people. I was only speaking to Corrine Mandin there. She's doing a massive national epidemiological study on radon in France. It's clearly a worldwide problem, so the more we understand it, the better. How did you get involved in radon and, more broadly, air quality then, james? Because you're now teaching at Maynooth, but you've been researching air quality and things like that for as long as I've known you.

James: 1:13:13

Yeah, so I suppose I did my original degree in Maynooth back. I suppose I finished in Maynooth in about 2008. Maynooth back um, I suppose I finished in Maynooth in about 2008 and, um, I had to say honestly I suppose at the time I kind of there was a PhD on offer down in Galway and it was computation modeling of indoor air, indoor air pollution. In the simple terms, and coming from a physics background, I had no idea what indoor air pollution was, frankly speaking. But it was the computational aspects that initially drew me to the project, because I'd done a lot of computer programming in my undergraduate degrees and that was what initially drew me into the project. But then I suppose, as the project developed, I got more of an understanding of the different aspects from a ventilation and building physics perspective and then, having finished the PhD, I branched more into the experimental aspects. So I suppose we kind of did more field studies and tried to gather more real data to try to better understand what was going on. And really I suppose Radon was at the time it was one of those projects that the EPA were looking for knowledge in and again, I suppose, frankly speaking, I suppose accidentally fell into it in some regards but I suppose it was an extension very much of that the building physics and the modelling, the air flows that we had been doing historically. And the radon was just suddenly, I suppose, branching into one more pollutant, if we call it that. Now that pollutant behaves quite differently than some of the other ones, but it was still in terms of a broad sense. Still, I suppose the modelling of an indoor air pollutant.

James: 1:14:46

A lot of my research at the minute is very much focused around that. I suppose indoor air quality or indoor environmental quality. There's a lot of it very much linked with energy retrofit strategies because obviously that's a. It's a huge topic in Ireland but it has obviously global significance. Everyone is trying to better understand the implications and we've several different projects between either being led at Maynooth University or being led by Dr Miriam Byrne in the what is now the School of Natural Sciences in the University of Galway, very much in the physics that was the former physics department, and so between miriam and myself we've several different projects looking at this, ranging from fuel poverty and energy implications with the indoor air quality aspects, uh, looking at energy retrofit strategies in offices and schools and both new, new bills and retrofitted cases, and looking at the the trade-offs between energy efficiency and air quality in naturally ventilated buildings.

James: 1:15:43

And there's another project which has been led by James O'Donnell and UCD that again we're collaborating on, but it's trying to look at the broader carbon lifecycle implications. So whether we're dealing with a building in terms of its operational carbon or its embodied carbon, but how do we combine that then with the implications of indoor air quality? So we need to start looking at the broader significance of these multiple metrics. So that project is kind of trying to build together multiple aspects into that. So I suppose, in a combination of between either being as a PI on some of these projects or being collaborators, we have a lot of different projects going on in this broad remit at the minute.

Simon: 1:16:24

Yeah, you have time to teach. Yes, of course.

James: 1:16:29

Of course I have to say yes.

Simon: 1:16:32

I know, yeah, I do, it's just.

James: 1:16:34

I suppose it's just trying to readjust myself now from being going from being very hands-on to having time myself to delve into these answers, to kind of more transitioning into more of a project management role where I can, I suppose, coordinate the students beneath me or the research, the postdocs. So I suppose, yeah, it's just it's it's just trying to learn to, I suppose, take that step back a bit and allow them to do the day-to-day stuff. But, um, I think sometimes I get so into the research and kind of going but what about this and what about this and what about this? It's um, I think that's the bit it's kind of you don't have as much time to delve into it yourself as you would have liked when you were solely a postdoc.

James: 1:17:13

Yeah, research is in your blood, I suppose yeah, and I suppose it's one of these things. I suppose I've been doing a lot of this since probably 2009, so it's been a. I suppose it's been a long journey and I suppose after a while you kind of start to see different research areas evolving and changing focus and you kind of go, well, what about this or what about this? Um, and it's, I suppose now the advantages I have. I can start to look at that broader picture instead of before, where I was looking at individual projects. Now I can start to try looking at how do the projects as a whole start to combine and give us more synergies?

James: 1:17:50

Yeah, and try to leverage one project to get one project against each other, to get greater out, to get greater sustained impact to get greater sustained impact.

Simon: 1:18:04

So where do you think the gaps in knowledge for indoor air quality are at the moment? What kind of excites you about where's next for research when it comes to our indoor environments? Because you've got your fingers in a lot of pies there at the minute and very closely linked to renovation and sustainability and embodied carbon I mean? Air quality doesn't sit in isolation. It's part of a broader built environment piece. Um, there's almost uh, countless opportunities for research and learning here. Where are you seeing it going? What's what's kind of pushing your buttons in that area these days?

James: 1:18:46

I suppose I would say kind of, there's the two different aspects.

James: 1:18:49

I think there's very much what I would call the applied research and that's very much that broader air quality aspects which you've been kind of really discussing, and then there's kind of more the fundamental aspects which I would would call more aerosol science things and understanding the broader implications at more fundamental level.

James: 1:19:06

And while there's obviously overlaps between the two of them, they can have very different focuses. Yeah, I suppose the broader, the more applied stuff has much more of a direct policy implication and trying to I suppose it has the benefit of being able to have larger impacts and have, I suppose, more immediate short-term impacts, particularly when I suppose the research is funded through government agencies. You know that that knowledge gap is coming from an already established place, that they need the answers to these questions and that I suppose, suppose that in itself is quite a strong motivator because when they've established the need for this, you know that your research then, if you can address it, it will have impact yeah yeah, there's a, there's a demand, somebody's actually reaching out and saying there's this gap we need filling, as opposed to the more theoretical.

Simon: 1:19:57

I wonder if there's a gap kind of question. Yeah, I don't know.

James: 1:20:01

I suppose I'd say I think I very much as a scientist at heart, I do I still like that kind of fundamental stuff going. Well, what happens if we do this? Even if it doesn't have a policy implication, it's very much, I think fundamental science needs that still. What if questions Like we wouldn't have found climate change if we didn't work in asking these? Well, what happens if we measure co2 just for the sake of it? Um, yeah, like so I think we need both elements of research and I think I kind of I do sit somewhere in between the two of them. Um, but it depends on on the focus.

Simon: 1:20:35

Both of them have different, I suppose, drivers and incentives and you've got two feet in two different camps from an organizational perspective as well. You sit both on the ISIAC groups and also the AIVC organization, which I'm involved in. They kind of bridge that applied and theoretical space as well quite a bit, don't they, those two organisations on for?

James: 1:21:03

two more years and again, this was isiac has much more of us was a.

James: 1:21:07

I suppose both societies have an international perspective but both, I suppose, have very different core remits.

James: 1:21:26

Uh, isiac is more of an um, I would say an academic organization, not exclusively and we are trying to branch out, but it does sit between that fundamental and kind of more applied research um, and particularly with two different conferences, the more regional ones try to have more of an impact with industry and policy where the indoor air is very much, I suppose the big academic conference, and that's every two years I suppose.

James: 1:21:53

So that was ISIAC and I suppose if I take off one hat and put on the other one, the other one is what you've said, is the um, the annex sorry, annex, annex 5, which is the aavc um, and I suppose the difference with this is the annex 86 is very much nearly at a country level, so there's national representations on the aavc board, whereas isiac is supposed is a, is just made up of a whole group of international members. So I suppose it's quite a different structure in terms of which both operate and I suppose both have a similar driving mechanism and, as it happens, there's a memorandum of understanding between the two organizations to try to support and to, I suppose, leverage the resources combined with each other. But there is quite a different, I suppose, organizational structure behind them and I suppose, by contrast, aibc has more of a, I would say, a ventilation focus that encompasses the broad aspects of air quality as well, but it again has very much a much stronger influences with industry and with policy, as I suppose, compared to the way ISIAC would operate.

Simon: 1:23:02

Yeah, no, completely, James. I'm going to have to get you to silence your rooster alarm in the background.

James: 1:23:09

there that's unfortunately that's outside yeah that's a real rooster from James joining me from rural Ireland. Ireland.

Simon: 1:23:19

I've been caught out.

James: 1:23:22

I think he might quiet down in a minute, hopefully.

Simon: 1:23:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first time it went off I went oh, he's got a rooster alarm on his phone, but by about the 15th time in the background. No, that's a rooster.

James: 1:23:32

Sorry, I'm so used to it now I just I don't hear it anymore.

Simon: 1:23:36

Yeah, no, it's brilliant. No, a great backdrop gives people a sense of place, I think where you're where you're joining us from.

James: 1:23:43

Yeah, you have to do some heavy editing afterwards yeah, no indeed, and I was uh.

Simon: 1:23:48

No, I'll keep this in. I think it's brilliant and um I was saying I was gone.

James: 1:23:54

sorry I was going. I suppose it's great, I suppose, with the avc board, that obviously, like you're on that committee as well and I think we can see we're able to use that to really have a stronger and a different leverage the way that ISIAC operates, and that's not to, I suppose, compare, that's not to diminish either one organization.

Simon: 1:24:12

Both are very different focuses and I think we do need both of them because both have a different approach and a different style and it's needed in both organizations yeah, and if people were listening to the, the podcast last week or this week, as it's out, we had gail guy on who's france's representative and we were saying we've got the dublin conference this year. So we're actually hosting for the first time the international conference for the AIVC, which I know we both put a lot of effort into, but equally looking forward to having it in our own backyard this year.

James: 1:24:52

Yeah, it's actually, it's quite exciting. So it's on what's it? The 9th and 10th of October? Hopefully I have those two dates right. I hope the ME too. There's other events on that week as well that I'm involved in. So I have to stop and think. But yeah, I know it is actually.

James: 1:25:08

It's very exciting that it's bringing it to Ireland and I think I suppose, simon, I think it's probably actually 10 years ago since I've met you at an AIBC conference.

James: 1:25:21

It's probably right around now.

James: 1:25:22

I'd say, give or take a couple of weeks, ironically, um, but I think it's nice that we can now see, like I think when we went went to that conference first it was yourself and I was there with, I think, two of the colleagues from Galway I nearly, actually I'm wrong, there was one guy from Cork was at that as well um, but very much at a small scale, where now we can see there's several projects going on between Maynooth, between Galway, between Cork and in various other organizations, and now I think that we can see the sustained growth in this research landscape in Ireland and it's great now that we can use, I think, this conference is a way to be able to showcase that, both at a national level, because I think it's important that we were able to demonstrate this to the research funders, but also the various government departments and agencies, but also at an international level to showcase yes, ireland is now becoming I won't say one of the leaders yet, but we're definitely in the way to catching up to kind of showcase all the strong research that's being done in Ireland.

James: 1:26:19

And this will serve as a platform for that and I think particularly we've tried to attract a lot of students to this conference and hopefully I think we have a lot of Irish students then will attend and be able to kind of give them really an excitement of what's actually happening.

Simon: 1:26:33

Yeah, and I think what's really interesting about this conference is that the theme this year is based around retrofit and its impact on the indoor environment, and that's something that both island is very strong on. From a retrofit perspective, we've got a lot of that happening with a lot of fairly advanced structures, and we've got the research to boot. We've got research that's integrated within that industry and that sector. So it's been really good to be able to showcase much of the research that's going on into the impacts on indoor environmental quality of retrofitting our existing stock, which, particularly for the European continent, represents such a big part of the built environment challenge over the next 20 or 30 years. Um, so I think it's a very relevant conference as well we've.

James: 1:27:26

It's great that I suppose we've had I would say buy-in is the best word to describe it from sei um. For those who don't know, that's the sustainable energy authority of ireland. It's not quite but I suppose it's analogy to our department of energy is probably a our government agency involved in the energy aspects in Ireland and they are one of the co-organisers of this event. But they also fund a lot of the research that goes on within this place and I suppose it's great that we're able to bring all of that together under this broad umbrella. And I suppose I should acknowledge I suppose there are a lot of the ones that fund, I suppose, both Simon and our travel and engagement with the AIBC as well. So I suppose we're very fortunate now in Ireland that broader research has really excelled in the last, I would say, four to six years within this space.

James: 1:28:12

It's nice to be able to bring all of that together in a coherent manner.

Simon: 1:28:16

Absolutely. So. Time is running out, but I think there's still availability for the conference, so if listeners haven't already booked to come, do check it out. I think the it's. I'm not joking when I say it's a packed two days at the ovc conferences.

Simon: 1:28:35

Uh, we have this eternal question in the board whether it should be three days or two and a half, and we can never quite make our minds up. But it's certainly a full-on two days. There's a lot of value in the two days here. There's something, I think, for everybody. So, yeah, do check it out if you get a chance.

James: 1:28:54

The program is up online now as well, so you can see even the detailed talks and everything that are going to happen, and I think the keynotes that I suppose are available of of excellent quality then as well. I think you mentioned kareem. Kareem is one of the keynotes at this conference as well, so it just shows this was the caliber that we have been able to attract yeah no, indeed james, listen, I appreciate your time today.

Simon: 1:29:20

it's been great having you on the podcast. It's been fascinating talking about a subject of real interest to me radon both personally and professionally, but actually learned loads as well as always talking to you. I think it's a really interesting subject and if anybody has any takeaways from my perspective of this podcast is test, please, because it's really useful information. It can really help you decide what's best for your health and the health of your building. So, please, it's very cheap to test for radon. 50 quid will get you a radon test, generally speaking, and give you the information you need to make the right decisions. Whether you're retrofitting or you're just in a property in an area of high radon, it's worthwhile looking at.

Simon: 1:30:06

Listen, james, thanks a million. It's been great talking to you, no problem, thanks, simon, take care. Thanks for listening. Before you go, can I ask a favour? If you enjoyed the podcast and know someone else who might be interested, do spread the word and let's keep building the community. This podcast was brought to you in partnership with 21 Degrees, lindab, aeco, ultra Protect and Imbiote all great companies who share the vision of the podcast and aren't here by accident. Your support of them helps their support of the podcast. Do check them out in the links and at airqualitymattersnet.