A modern approach to hazmat in buildings?

[terry]

For interest. The following extracted from the < alt.home.repair >

news group that covers mainly North American threads.

> >> A Baltimore fire department spokesman says more than a dozen people at > > >> a Baltimore school have been isolated after broken thermometers > > >> prompted concerns about the mercury inside. > > > At a school not far from here, it was discovered the near 100 year old > > > building had asbestos in the ceilings. So they had an emergency > > > evacuation and closed the school until it was removed months later. Good > > > thing they did not wait another 90 minutes to the end of the school day > > > to send the kids home. > > Unfortunately this is the kind of sky is falling in stuff that really > > discredits (and rightly so) these government agencies. > > Someone I know is replacing one of their business locations with a new > > building. One of the procedures for tearing down the old small one story > > building was to get some sort of hazardous materials permit. Some > > inspector had to be hired and he found that a 5x5' (yes, 25 sq ft) > > office had floor tiles that "may contain asbestos". So it cost $3,800 > > and delayed the project by two weeks until the proper outfit which was > > rated to handle the highly dangerous non-friable asbestos could be > > hired.

And then I posted the following.

I think the two parts of the following anecdote connect???? And are somewhat on topic with the foregoing?

My late father born around 1901, grew up in London UK and told me about workers who job it was to paint the luminous paint markings onto WWI aircraft instrument dials, 'luminous' watches etc. It was done by hand; required some artistry and a steady hand. It was the habit of the workers to wet and rotate their brushes between their lips in order to shape the fine pointed ends of their brushes to produce the fine markings. Many years later it was noticed that a significant number of the workers died from various forms of throat, lip and other cancers and it was traced to the small amounts of radioactive luminescent paint that the workers had ingested!

My father, who was of course a child, during that first war died in the late 1960s

A few years ago there was press story about an old building in that same area of London that had had variuos uses (possibly at one point it was tobacco warehouse?) during the last century was being renovated once again. Memory escapes me but it was possibly being upgraded to high end apartments? It was discovered almost accidentally that the floors of the building were highly contaminated with some type of radioactivity. Very expensive to remove and replace apparently. Investigation showed that the building had at one time, back around WWI, been used as a small factory for producing aircraft instruments etc. The radioactive floors were the result of variuos spills/ splashes of luminous paint!

So I wonder? In my mind the two separate stories seemed to connect?

I guess that item "Check for radioactivity" is not on most 'Approved for Occupancy Permit check-lists'?

Have fun. terrry

[Matty F]

I have been thinking about making a Geiger radiation detector. Because I'm too stingy to buy one, I was thinking along the lines of having an aluminium can with a central rod with about 1000 volts DC, and a nearby transister radio tuned off-station. I'd get the 1000 volts from an old insect killer, or make a Cockcroft- Walton circuit.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I don't think that's very sensitive.

Geiger tubes are not that expensive are they?

[Matty F]

Around here they would be about the price of a car.

[Andy Burns]

Cheap cars down there!

Plenty of GM tubes on ebay, singles between $12 and $25 from america, or bulk boxes from (ex)soviet countries $300 for 50 tubes.

[Lobster]

I've certainly heard about that before - see more information here:

[dennis]

Wouldn't a scintillation counter be a better device to make?

[Adam Aglionby]

, Radium did after all killl its discoverer, Marie Curie. A scandal that cotinued for many years after the effects were known, most well known in North America

> My father, who was of course a child, during that first war died in > the late 1960s >

Radium dials have caused problems in various places, old aircarft have radium dials that makes the cockpit an exposure hazard, places where old aircraft were scrapped have had problems, Balado /Dalgety Bay in Fife has radioactive hotpsots supposedly from radium dials of burnt aircraft hulks. Museums have to take care with radium dialled instruments.

Bit more sinister parts of Woolwich Arsenal demolished for redevelopment, radioactivity on site had to be cleared, official story radium dials, real problem irradiated corpses and body parts used at teaching Hospitals for radiation testing effects on human tissue, not safe to bury normally , buried in local MoD property of time.

Is in Aberdeenshire and Cornwall, lot of granite means accumulation of Radon gas very real possibilty, radon proof membranes and fans not uncommon.

Cheers Adam

[Matty F]

So can I make one of those out of stuff I have lying around the house?

[Andrew Gabriel]

I made one for my dad, 20 years ago. He was visiting Kiev, and it wasn't long since the Chernobyl disaster. Up until Chernobyl, geiger counters were easy to obtain as army surpless. They all vanished overnight when Chernobyl happened.

I bought the geiger tube from Maplin, but I don't think they sell them anymore. They use about 300-500V, which I made using an oscilator, a minature mains 9V transformer in reverse, and a voltage doubler rectifier, all run from a PP3.

It won't be very sensitive inside an aluminium can. A real tube has a mica (IIRC) window to let low energy radiation through, and even then, it's unlikely to see many alpha particles. Beta particles are ideal, but will mostly not get through an aluminium can. Gamma mostly passes right through without being noticed, but you'll get some clicks if there's enough of it. Special tubes can be doped with elements which change the sensitivity, e.g. more prone to absorb a gamma and ionise, hence increasing sensitivity to gamma.

Only thing I could find which triggered the one I built was my grandfather's watch which sent it crazy (luminous paint, although not very luminous anymore).

[<me9]

where I worked (at a college) many years ago we had a radiochemistry lab. The counts of the concoctions the students worked on were quite low, in the tens and hundreds. Severe precautions were taken. We were even closed down for several months when the background cpunt got too high.

One day the senior lecturer took out his pocket watch and placed it near the counter - off scale on the highest reading.

I wonder if our low level waste is still in the top of the clock tower (lead roofed). The building is now a restauraunt.

[Mark Spice]

When I worked for the Medical Research Council we had a specified area for all radio labelled work. This was washed down with ethanol after use and the disposabled work tray replaced whenever the count got too high (we used a counter after cleaning up). This all worked well until a quiet day in the lab when somebody decided to use the counter on the fridge and freezer handles. It was no longer a quiet day at that point...

Cheers

Mark

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: [e-mail] ---

[dennis]

From what I have seen so far you probably can. Geiger tubes aren't very good at detecting radiation, they don't detect alpha and aren't very good at gamma.

[Andy Champ]

Adam,

I've heard of this hazard before - equipment that has been sitting around for years with no apparent problems suddenly being classed as hazardous waste.

Do you know of any evidence that radium in an instrument has actually caused problems? It's not as if anyone using a 1940s altimeter is going to be licking their radium paintbrush - it's all inside the case.

Andy

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Champ saying something like:

I strongly suspect it's hysterical bullshit.

[Adam Aglionby]

Guessing, as in not sure that couple main problems with old aircraft, lot of radium dials in compact space so power density is high and binder in the pigment failing meaning some radium dust around the place is a possibilty.

East Fortunes Aircraft Museum certainly has raidation warning signs on some of the older aircrafts cockpits and in some, the ballast at the rear is depleted uranium, very very heavy for its size.

Devices Containing Radium Luminous Compounds

[Andy Champ]

Set1, Answer4: "As long as the device is not disassembled or tampered with, the risk of contamination is minimal."

Set 2, Answer 2: "The biggest hazards are from the intake of radium through ingestion (e.g. from contaminated hands), inhalation (e.g. breathing in loose radium luminous paint) and absorption through the skin (e.g. through open wounds)."

I'm not going to worry myself. And TBH if I was behind the stick of a WW2 aircraft (or any aircraft!) it's not the radiation you should be scared of!

Andy

[dennis]

You are not going to get a radiation problem from depleted uranium. Not unless someone uses a neutron bomb nearby. Its a far bigger fire hazard.