"Breeze block"

"breeze block". I always thought (and the dictionary agrees) that a breeze block is a lightweight block made of cinder, not a heavy concrete block yo u can make supporting walls out of.

ind a smooth one, can I play with him?"

Obviously of the old school. The clinker they were made from is slightly radioactive (coal ash) so actua l clinker block has been replaced with other insulating blocks.

They made them because the clinker was a waste material and little cement w as needed due to the composition of the ash.

"breeze block". I always thought (and the dictionary agrees) that a breeze block is a lightweight block made of cinder, not a heavy concrete block yo u can make supporting walls out of.

ind a smooth one, can I play with him?"

He's nearly 60.

So can you still buy a lightweight block? What he called a breezeblock was this (which is as heavy as brick):

When I were a lad (about 30 years ago), my parents had a spare few breezeblocks lying around, you could throw them about like footballs. They looked like brick, but didn't feel like it. And you could smash them.

That may be so, but OOI why should coal ash be slightly radioactive, more so than anything else and enough to warrant it not being used in cinder blocks?

Ash in coal arises from it's incombustible mineral content, presumably clay and sand laid down at the same time as the organic matter that makes up the carbon content. Why should that clay and sand be any more radioactive than any other clay and sand, e.g. such as that used in bricks?

Which just goes to show how safe nuclear power stations are, and not how dangerous cinder blocks are, and goes no way to answer my question to your other post.

I was told by a builder's merchant at the time that breeze block manufacture was discontinued because the raw material, coal clinker, was unavailable because of the conversion of the railways to diesel power.

They actually built a railway line here to transport coal to a power station. It lasted about 2 or 3 years, then closed down. F*****ts.

Because coal has traces of uranium in it and burning the coal leaves the uranium

Dunno, but it is.

Hmm...a quick search on the Internet produces lots of shock-horror stuff saying that coal ash is radioactive and contains uranium and thorium, but gives little indication as to why or where it originated. I'm none the wiser. Maybe the tree ferns and other vegetation that eventually became the carbon in coal were able to concentrate those heavy metals from the groundwater.

Hmm, yes, well breeze blocks seem to be made of all sorts of stuff if the old garage we had was anything to go by. cinder mainly but it seemed to me many were made from crushed cement and stone mixed in as well. This would have dated back to the war, I imagine. There are also those concrete blocks that have a hole through them. Seen them used for garage walls as well,with metal rods inside some of them.

Brian

Brazil nuts are faintly radioactive (as are bananas).

The extensive root systems work to concentrate *already existing* radioactive compounds.

Alarmists.

Yebbut that's from potassium. Coal ash is from uranium and thorium.

Oh, quite. Uranium and thorium are not 'created' under normal environmental circumstances, nor are any other elements, for that matter.

But they are blown into the atmosphere with volcanic activity ?

It doesn't require volcanic activity. Both elements exist in ppm quantities throughout the earth's crust, more concentrated in some places than in others. Natural groundwater movements will leach both species and make them available to plants.

There are other radioactive elements in plants, including potasium (makes nuts and bananas radioactive) carbon (why carbon dating works) even oxygen. Its all natural stuff too.

Well yes, if you call radioactive decay a normal environmental circumstance, which you could, I suppose. In which case you'd include lead.