A Fast and Accurate Radon Measurement Tool for Remedial Actions in Buildings

Abstract Continuous monitoring of radon concentration is an effective and fast method for assessing radon sources in buildings. For this purpose, fast response and absence of residual contribution from previous measurements is of primary importance to cut intervention time and cost in a remedial action. An instrument is described based on a scintillation cell. Counts from the detection assembly are processed by a microprocessor-based unit in order to compensate plateout and thus shorten the detector response step down to 15 min compared to the typical 3 h. A new treatment of the cell background, added to the algorithms, cancels the detector memory of previous measurements. The instrument has the ability to characterise both high and low activity environments in rapid sequence, even with a switch off/on operation in between, with almost no influence on the measure accuracy. A discussion of the computations and results from measurements is given.