Question – I am thinking about purchasing granite countertops for our kitchen and bathrooms, but I have been reading some horror stories about granite and radon. Now I read your web site, and you say not to be concerned. How can I be sure that the granite I’m chosing doesn’t emit radon? I am honestly very worried after reading about it online, but then you say it’s not true at all.

My Answer – Thanks for the question. The real issue is not whether granite emits radon. It does. Some types emit more than others. The question is whether this is a problem or not. The amount of radon emitted by granite is very small compared to the radon that is emitted by the earth beneath your house. Just look at the size difference. Does the amount of stone in your countertops come close tot eh amount of stone in the ground beneath your house? It’s not even close.

Radon seeps from the ground and it can become a problem when it gets trapped by your house. Your house acts like a hat, preventing the radon from rising up into the atmosphere. If a house has a radon problem, the cure is to ventilate the space beneath the basement slab or the crawlspace with a small fan, thus “untrapping” it. It does not take much air movement to rid the house of radon. When houses have radon problems, it’s because the enclosed crawlspace or basement trap it and don’t let it dissipate. Your kitchen is certainly not an enclosed space. It would be very hard for radon to build up in there to harmful levels. The fact that a kitchen is open to other rooms, doors open and close, exhaust fans run, etc. means that any radon is vented out and never can build up to a level even close to being harmful.

The bottom line is this. For your granite countertops to present a radon health issue, you would need much more granite than a typical kitchen would have, it would have to be a high emitting granite, you would need to keep the kitchen tightly sealed for long periods of time, and you would have to live in there, sleeping on the countertop, for years before this would be a real health issue.

The detractors of granite are the producers of other countertop materials. Every few years they trot out their videos showing the radon meter indicating elevated radon on the surface of the granite. But they unfairly omit the full facts, leaving the viewer with the impression that granite is dangerous. You never see them give radon readings elsewhere in the rooms. They put the meters right on the granite. It makes me wonder how people have lived in stone houses for so many years. No one worries about stone floors or fireplaces. This issue is simply a competitor taking unfair pot shots at a rival based on partial information that plays on people’s fears.

I hope that explains it for you. But if you are stilled worried, there are other countertop materials to choose from. Granite is very nice and, in reality, is no heath problem. But worry is unhealthy. So choose the material that does not worry you.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

    It seems that this report surfaces every ten years, or so. It has been promoted by the makers of competing countertop materials, like quartz products like Cambria or Silestone and solid surfaces like Corian. You can read and listen to the reports for yourself, but it seems to me that this is a Chicken Little issue that grabs the media’s attention and the stone countertop industry then has to spend lots of time and money de-bunking it.

    Personally, I think that the threat presented by radon, in general, is way over-blown. I have never seen a positive, scientific, statistical link between radon levels and actual cases of lung cancer. All I’ve seen is pure speculation and panic prospering propaganda. The literature tells you all of the risks and dangers radon poses without actually showing that any of these dangerous consequences have ever occurred. None of the literature even acknowledges the effects simple ventilation has on dispersing the gas. Radon occurs naturally in the soil and rocks and it comes into a house through the ground. It can not be stopped. Ventilation is the remedy for houses that contain too much radon. The amount of radon that a stone countertop “might” emit is a small fraction of what occurs naturally and opening a door to the kitchen will remove any accumulated radon gas.

    I think this is another example of irresponsible journalism, if you can call it journalism at all.

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If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.