Household Radioactivity Testing

Household Radioactivity Testing

Sgt. Poopers provides radioactive testing to detect and measure sources of ionizing radiation in Dallas, Tx homes.


Contents (Quick Links)


Ionizing Radiation Testing

Sgt. Poopers® Radioactivity Lockdown testing logo

As part of our Radiation Lockdown service, Sgt. Poopers can test for sources of ionizing radiation in your home. Though radioactivity is much less of a threat than electromagnetic fields (EMF) and radio frequency (RF) radiation which are ubiquitous, you might be surprised how common is radioactivity in Dallas, Texas.

Common sources of radioactivity around the home include antique "uranium glass" (pictured) also called Vaseline glass or canary glass due to it's pale yellow-green color. This once-popular style of glassware glows brightly under ultraviolet light (black light) and was produced right up to 1942 when supplies of uranium were restricted for use by the Manhattan Project. But household radiation doesn't just come from antiques.

Cancer medications are quite common. In fact, medical radiation is responsible for about 14 percent of most people’s yearly exposure to radiation. This can come from having these medications in your home, but also from being around someone who is taking such medications. For a time, they are radioactive.


Household Radioactivity

Photo of luminous clock dial

Greenish glow-in-the-dark phosphorescent paints absorb light, then emits it slowly, but are not radioactive at all.
Radium in some antiques glows bluish, is highly radioactive, and glows from radioactive decay.

Other common radioactive sources around the home include smoke detectors; fluorescent lights; zircon, beryl, tourmaline and topaz gemstones; lantern mantles (treated with thorium and beryllium); some porcelain teeth and veneers; radium-dial clocks and watches; tritium gun sights, compasses, watch faces; recycled (contaminated) metals; pottery; granite countertops; natural stone walls; antique glassware; ceramic 1950s era bathroom tiles made with uranium oxide.

Vintage photo of radium girlsRadium was discovered in the early 1900s. Manufacturers began to mix radium into paints for clock, watch and instrument faces because its blueish glow made instruments readable all night long. Radium remained popular until the 1960s when it was finally banned after many people died horribly, especially people who worked with it in the manufacturing process. Radium factories hired mostly women to paint watch dials with radium paint. Not only did they tell them the radium paint was harmless, they taught them to lick the brush tips to create a sharp point for better detail and thereby many of these women ingested this radioactive element.

Radium is highly radioactive and emits alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Once it gets inside the body, it accumulates in bones and causes cancer. If you have a clock or watch that glows blue-white at night, you should be careful to make sure no one ever inhales radium dust.

Another example of household radioactivity, less common today than in earlier decades, is ceramic dinnerware. Uranium oxide and sodium urinate were used in glazes to produce colors like the famous orange-red Fiestaware produced until 1974. But other colors were produced as well with radioactive compounds including green, yellow, white and black.

TIPS FROM THE EPA:
  • Do not attempt to take apart radium watches or instrument dials. Radioactive antiques are usually not a health risk as long as they are intact and in good condition.
  • Do not use ceramics like antique orange-red Fiestaware or Vaseline glass to hold food or drink. They can chip, and you can ingest particles of uranium with your food or drink.
  • Dispose of any broken radioactive antiques. For instructions on proper disposal, contact your state or local radiation control program.

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Radiation Lockdown Service

Sgt. Poopers Geiger Counter

While our Radiation Lockdown service includes detection and measurement of EMF and RF electromagnetic radiation, we can also detect for sources of ionizing radiation using a special Geiger-Mueller counter that detects and measures Alpha, Beta, Gamma and X-ray radiation with the highest accuracy, both together or separately, in addition to all our regular equipment for radio frequency, electric and magnetic fields, and dirty electricity. 

Sgt. Poopers® logoOur ionizing radiation detection includes searching for sources inside and outside your home, and also testing specific objects like antiques or glassware if you have any. If we find anything radioactive, that doesn't mean you have to throw it out. Some studies show that low exposure to radiation can actually improve health through a process called hormesis, a possible silver lining to the radioactive cloud. More on that below.

Our Radiation Lockdown provides you with three important benefits,

1. We determine your radiation exposure in all the common areas where you spend significant time around the clock,
2. We trace each type of electronic radiation back to its source, to reveal which devices are causing problems,
3. We show you exactly how to eradicate or reduce each source of radiation as needed.

The solution always requires some effort on your part, but the good news is that most (not all) situations are remediable.

Sgt. Poopers® Radiation LockdownOur equipment is designed to do the following:

  • Search radiation-contaminated areas
  • Analyze radiation-contaminated objects
  • Assess current radiation situation
  • Assess the level gamma and X-ray radiation
  • Assess integral ambient dose of photonic radiation
  • Displays radiation count with an accuract rate of 95%
  • Sounds an alarm if the background radiation exceeds defined thresholds
  • Assess beta particles flux density
  • Assess alpha particles flux density

Questions? Call us at (214) 563-6379

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Hormesis: Silver Lining of a Radioactive Cloud

Sgt. Poopers® Conservation ArrowheadThis is good news for those who are alarmed by environmental radiation and toxins. Hormesis is a proven principle that small amounts of toxins — any toxin including ionizing radiation — actually improves health. Hormesis stands in contrast to the linear "no-threshold model" that posits a direct index between toxins and ill health. This model assumes even the smallest amount of any toxin could only worsen health to a corresponding degree.

Indeed, in the real world the "no-threshold" model doesn't seem to hold true. All life forms, from bacteria to humans abide by the principle of hormesis: crickets and lab rats dusted with small amounts of DDT; mice and bacteria fed small doses of deadly drugs; and humans, bacteria, and plants exposed to small amounts of ionizing radiation all became more healthy in response. This is in alignment with studies which have found lower incidence of cancer in communities living at high altitudes where like Denver, Colorado.

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Poison Paradox

Sgt. Poopers® Mascot, Maria 2006-2017The late Don Luckey, author and respected biochemist, wrote a book in 1980 entitled Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation. But he wasn't the first to understand this principle. 16th-century physician Paracelsus observed that only thing that made something poisonous was the dose. In 1888, German pharmacologist Hugo Schulz noted that yeast growth was stimulated by small doses of poisons.

Does any of this mean ionizing radiation is universally safe in low doses? No. But it means it might be. And it means whatever you were exposed to as a child... DDT, dioxin, cigarette smoke, and fatal doses of carbohydrates... well, maybe that stuff is not going to kill you after all.

As for carbs, possibly the principle of hormesis explains why we could eat them as a kid, but now they make us fat!

What we don't know is the precise location of the line between a small does that improves health, and the large dose that murders us. At any rate our Radiation Lockdown can only help since it will behoove you to know what your immediate environment may be hiding in plain sight. Moreover, when it comes to electromagnetic radiation, the overwhelming evidence is that we as a culture have long passed the threshold. Heavy electromagnetic radiation exposure such as people living near power lines and cell towers coincides with grossly elevated rates of mortality.

But in the field of ionizing radiation you are likely to be quite safe, though of course I am an environmental conservationist, not a doctor or medical expert! Nothing in this website constitutes medical advice.

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Radon in Dallas, Texas

The number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers in the United States is an element called radon, a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas.

Radon is a natural byproduct of uranium decay and seeps up from the ground constantly.It becomes a problem when the gas gets trapped inside houses and people or pets end up breathing it into their lungs.

Map of Texas radon zonesRadon is common because uranium exists naturally everywhere in rock, soil, waterways, and sea water. Uranium is a silver-gray metal in the Earth's crust worldwide. It is approximately forty times more common than silver and 500 times more common than gold. Since it is undetectable by human senses, the only way to detect its presence is by testing. 

The good news is that uranium and therefore radon is less common in some soils than others. According to the EPA, much of Texas is in the lowest risk zone and that includes Dallas County. It can still be a problem, but in general Dallasites are at far less risk than someone living in Iowa or in the Appalachian Mountain regions of southeastern Pennsylvania.


Radiation in Common Foods

Sgt. Poopers® Disinfection and Deodorizing buttonIf at this very moment you happen to be drinking a seafood smoothie with bananas and Brazil nuts, please don't choke as you read the next line. Some foods tend to accumulate radioactive elements, namely seafood, bananas and Brazil nuts. However these are nearly impossible to measure because the radioactivity is less than the general background radiation levels. The difference is we eat food, taking it into our body, whereas we are not able to eat the general background.

If radioactive particles make it inside your body, possible damage could be done. It is not normally part of our Radiation Lockdown, but we are capable of measuring individual food items for their general radioactivity. This is done by measuring first the radiation level in the general background, then measuring said food item. Since it is not part of our normal Radiation Lockdown, it is offered here as food for thought.

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Scale of Radiation Exposures (Doses)

Image of chernobyl cooling tower

Beneath an abandoned Chernobyl Cooling Tower in Pripyat, Ukraine.

Radiation comes in a broad range of magnitudes.  Scientists use a measurement called the sievert to record the strength of radiation. An amount of radiation measured as 1 sievert would bring on a sever case of radiation sickness. Lesser amounts of radiation are measured in in millisieverts, and even smaller amounts are measured in microsieverts.

1 sievert (Sv) = 1,000 millisieverts (mSv)
1 millisievert (mSv) = 1,000 microsieverts μSv

It might be helpful to know in practical terms how various doses of ionizing radiation compare, so here are several radiation examples from small to large:

  • Sgt. Poopers® Chartered Conservationist badgeEating a banana = .1 μSv (microsievert)
  • Average background dose of radiation in one hour = 0.35 μSv
  • Living about 30 miles from Fukushima = 3.5 μSv (per day)
  • Getting a dental X-ray = 5 μSv
  • Getting a chest X-ray = 75 μSv
  • 14 hours in a passenger jet = 100 μSv
  • Visiting Three-Mile Island = 1,000 μSv or 1 mSv (millisievert)
  • Annual average background dose of radiation = 3 mSv or 3,000 μSv
  • Full-body CT scan = 10 mSv
  • 60 minutes at Chernobyl = 6 mSv
  • Smoking 1.5 packs of cigarettes a day for one year = 13 mSv
  • Occupational limit per year for adults = 50 mSv
  • 6-month stay on the International Space Station = 80 mSv
  • 6-month trip to Mars, radiation from penetrating cosmic rays = 250 mSv
  • Spending a year in Ramsar, Iran = 260 mSv
  • Highest dose received by a Fukushima worker = 670 mSv
  • Enough to cause radiation sickness = 1 Sv
  • Severe radiation poisoning = 2 Sv
  • Fatal radiation poisoning = 6 Sv
  • 10 minutes near the damaged reactor core at Chernobyl = 50 Sv

According to these figures, relaxing 10 minutes near the damaged reactor core at Chernobyl is the radioactive equivalent of eating 500,000,000 bananas in 10 minutes or receiving 10,000,000 dental x-rays.

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Radiation Lockdown Prices

Our Radiation Lockdown service includes testing for ionizing radiation.

Sgt. Poopers Radiation Lockdown price chart

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Ionizing Radiation Testing Summary

Sgt. Poopers® graphic from our original 2008 website

A living environment contaminated by ionizing radiation (radioactivity) is no walk in the park! Our electromagnetic control testing protocols are designed to protect and conserve the most precious parkland of all — the one you call home. It’s like having a park ranger for your own backyard which is why we say, “We treat your yard like a National Park!”

Sgt. Poopers is a conservation company, so our protocols are based on the principles of conservation. Our approach is common-sense, holistic, always safe, and 100% effective. Our methodology works and you will see immediate results. On top of everything else, no contract is required. We do not use toxic chemistry that can harm people or pets. We restore the balance of nature and make living environments safe for you, children, pets, and beneficial insects like honeybees and butterflies. Please tour our website to learn more. If you have any questions, please call us today at (214) 563-6379. For your convenience, you may also request services from this site.

Steve Hall, Conservation Advocate   signature

Steve Hall
CEO & President, Sgt. Poopers
Conservation Advocate

We would like to thank you for your interest in Sgt. Poopers. We look forward to serving you in the near future!

Proudly serving neighborhoods throughout greater Dallas, Texas

Monday–Friday: 8AM–8PM
Saturday: 8AM–5PM
Sunday: 9AM–8PM

(214) 563-6379

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 Questions and Answers for Voice Search

Here are the answers for questions addressed to Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Home.

Who does testing for ionizing radiation in Dallas, Texas?

Sgt. Poopers provides residential testing for ionizing radiation, plus EMF and RF radiation testing in the Dallas, Texas area to detect your exposure to toxic radiation.  Call (214) 563-6379

Who does radioactivity Testing in Dallas, Texas?

Sgt. Poopers provides residential testing for ionizing radiation, plus EMF and RF radiation testing in the Dallas, Texas area to detect your exposure to toxic radiation.  Call (214) 563-6379

Who detects and measures ionizing radiation in Dallas, Texas?

Sgt. Poopers provides residential testing for ionizing radiation, plus EMF and RF radiation testing in the Dallas, Texas area to detect your exposure to toxic radiation.  Call (214) 563-6379

Who does RADIOACTIVITY Testing in Dallas, Texas?

Sgt. Poopers provides residential and commercial radioactivity testing  in the Dallas, Texas area to detect exposure to ionizing, nuclear or atomic radiation.  Call (214) 563-6379

I think I am being exposed to radiation, what should I do?

Sgt. Poopers provides residential testing for ionizing radiation, plus EMF and RF radiation testing in the Dallas, Texas area to detect your exposure to toxic radiation.  Call (214) 563-6379

Can radiation hurt my dog or cat?

Radiation is toxic to all life. Sgt. Poopers provides residential testing for ionizing radiation, plus EMF and RF radiation testing in the Dallas, Texas area to detect your exposure to toxic radiation.  Call (214) 563-6379

I think radiation is interfering with my sleep. What should I do?

Contact Sgt. Poopers to schedule their radiation testing procedure at your home, Call (214) 563-6379.

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Tags: radioactive testing, radiation lockdown, radioactivity, radioactivity testing, ionizing radiation, atomic radiation, nuclear radiation, radon, uranium glass, Ionizing Radiation Testing

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