Engineering – Page 11 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Engineering Party Decorations

Posted on July 11, 2013 by geek

My boss retired today. I am going to miss her very much. She was a great boss and a great coworker. There were projects on which I very much worked with her and not for her. She is very knowledgable, smart, and great at communicating science to non-scientists. My workplace is losing a great worker. My coworkers and I wanted to throw her a great party before she left. Somehow I ended up planning most of the party decorations. Most people would probably think a nerdy engineer would make a bad party decorator, and they most likely are correct. However my boss is a geologist, and I wanted party decoration that honored her and her work. Thus, most of the party decorations came from Home Depot. Yes, seriously. I wanted to go with a geology and engineering theme, so where else am I going to buy stuff? What kind of party decorations can you get at Home Depot? Read on.

Table cloth made from orange safety fence. In some places, this is known as magic orange fence. It is “magic” because on one side of it, you need personal protective equipment (PPE) such as respirators, and on the other side, you are fine. Sometimes, the fence is just used to keep chickens, goats, dogs, etc. off the construction site. The table decorations are rocks and little yellow hard hats that coworkers found at various party and other type stores.

Streamers made from yellow caution tape and red danger tape.

The banner and construction equipment mobiles came from a party supply store. My coworker who bought them told me it was difficult to shop for my theme, but she found the construction equipment mobiles.

The coworkers in my branch and I decided to give our boss a few gag gifts. Someone suggested making our boss where a tiara for the party. I said it would be more appropriate for her to wear a jeweled hardhat, so I made this. It is a regular hardhat with four-point suspension that meets ANSI and OSHA standards. I just spray-painted it silver and then glued plastic gemstones to it. Just because you have to wear PPE doesn’t mean you can’t have style or bling.

After people looked at my decorations and hardhat, I was told several times today that I think outside the box. I take that as a compliment. My box is probably on another planet in fact.

Mu is Not U

Posted on July 10, 2013 by geek

Time for another blog post where I try to improve science grammar.

This is the lower case Greek letter mu: μ. This is the lower case Latin letter u: u. Latin letters are, of course, what are used in the English alphabet as well as many, many other languages. While μ and u look similar, they are different. The Greek letter mu, uppercase Μ, is closer to the Latin letter M. The Latin letter U (uppercase, or u, lowercase) is more related to the Greek letter Upsilon (uppercase Υ, lowercase υ).

So now that I got that out of the way, when it comes to science in particular, μ and u are NOT interchangeable. In the International System of Units (SI), otherwise known as the Metric system, μ is the symbol used to represent the prefix micro-. “μ” can easily be added into a document using a insert symbol compound. It is an easy procedure, and there is no need to be lazy and just use “u”. “u” does not mean micro-. It is wrong. Don’t do it.

Speaking to High School Students

Posted on June 28, 2013 by geek

I was asked to speak at The Washington Youth Summit on the Environment (WYSE) to a small group of the delegates about my career as environmental engineer/health scientist. The delegates are high school students. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve spoken to a group of high school students about anything. I was told to talk about my career and talk about specific projects on which I’ve worked. I prepared a few slides on the basics of risk assessment as that is the general field in which I work now and then quite a few slides on my dissertation and a few slides on the project I am currently working at work. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would they be interested in this at all? Would my slides be interesting or too far over their heads? I took out what I thought were the more advanced and complicated slides and just focused on graphs and photos. I wanted to focus on the big picture.

Part of my problem with giving this presentation was, the more educated you become, the more you take for granted what other people know. At least, I have that problem. I have had so much math education including three semesters of calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, probability, statistics, and biostatistics, that I’m flabbergasted when I meet people who can’t do or understand basic algebra or understand what a square root is. Certainly, you can make an argument that this is a sign of the failure of the US education system, but people’s education level is what it is. If you want to explain something to someone, than you have to be able to explain it to them on their level. These are high school students, and I can’t expect them to know information that is not taught until college or after. Thus, I have a group of high school students that I need to talk to about the work that I do and the work I did to earn my Ph.D. I am not entirely sure how to do this. I don’t quite frankly remember what I knew in high school. I have no idea what these students know. I don’t want to bore and confuse them by talking at so high a level that they can’t understand me, but I don’t want to insult them by explaining things they already know.

I am really not sure how I did. The one thing I am fairly sure about is that I babbled and rambled a few times. I am really not the best speaker. I am not a bad speaker, but I do much better if I have a set text that I am reading or very specific things with high points written on slides. I didn’t do that for this talk because I wanted to be able to change what I was saying once I got there and started getting questions. They did ask me questions. They asked me great questions in fact. However those questions made me realize just how much I know and forget that other people don’t know. That is in no way meant to be an insult to these students. I was really impressed with them. Like I said, they asked great questions. Also, they were very polite and politely listened even when I am sure I started to ramble. I really appreciated their attentiveness, and I loved their questions.

For example, one of the first questions I got was on one of my first slides, which had the word epidemiology on it. I was asked “what is epidemiology?” This is probably where it hit me that I had no idea what they knew. It didn’t really dawn on me that some (or all) would not know what that word meant and what that science field is. Again, that is not an insult to them. If anything, I was annoyed with myself for not considering when I learned that word. I am glad I was asked the question. It gave me a chance to tell them about John Snow and the London cholera epidemic. I am fairly sure all epidemiology courses are legally required to start with a discussion on John Snow and the London cholera epidemic, so I had fun telling them about it.

I can’t remember all the questions I got, but I got quite a few. I loved this because that meant the person asking the question was listening and engaged. When I describing issues related to soil and groundwater contamination, I got a very simple question as to how these chemicals get into the soil and groundwater. I LOVED this question. I can’t describe all the reasons why I loved this question, but one is because I am an engineer, and I get frustrated when people think we build things and then no maintenance is ever needed. Bridges in the US keep falling down, and the American Society of Civil Engineers gives our infrastructure a D+ grade. One of the reasons is lack of maintenance. I got to explain to the students about maintenance and inspections and things simply not being designed or built to last forever. I also explained how decades ago, people used to just dump chemicals in the ground or water and never think of the consequences.

I also got some questions of how to find out more information on different topics and things I discussed. They wanted to know more. As I always want to know more, how could I not like these students? I hope some of them already have or are now on the internet reading more about the topics I only lightly discussed. Maybe one day I will meet them again professionally.

Solar Impulse

Posted on June 23, 2013 by geek

Solar Impulse, the solar powered plane that can store enough energy to fly through the night, is currently at Udvar-Hazy Center. The plane is a marvel of engineering both from the standpoint of being able to collect enough solar energy during the day to power itself all day and through the following night but also from the standpoint of being light enough in weight that it needs very little energy to keep it flying. I went to see it while it was open for public viewing Saturday, and from an engineering perspective, it is just beautiful. When viewed in person, you can see how the plane is covered in high strength fabric. In the back stabilizer, you can see the internal structures that give the stabilizer its shape. It is just an amazing vehicle. Note: If you click on any of the photos, it will open up larger in a new page to allow a better look.

front panorama of Solar Impulse

Side panorama of Solar Impulse

Solar Impulse cockpit and middle two propellors

view down the wing span

Tail and stabilizer

View of stabilizer from side showing internal support

View from below stabilizer showing internal supports and photovoltaic cells above

Solar Impulse wing flaps with photovoltaic cells on top

View between wing flaps using my zoom lens to show wires connecting photovoltaic cells

Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geek

Last night, I went to Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS)‘s D.C. Art Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER). It is a monthly discussion forum on art and science. They always have interesting speakers, and it is one of the cool things about living in the DC area. Anyway, last night upon walking into the room right before the program began, I was immediately intrigued by this enormous sphere siting in the corner of the room, which I dubbed the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing.

I had no idea what this thing was, and there was no mention of it in the program. I envisioned the amazing game of beach ball toss that a large crowd could play with it. The Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing was seriously one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and I wanted one. Sure it was probably about 10 feet in diameter and would never fit in my house. Even if it did fit in my house, putting a shiny inflatable ball in the same house with my cat and her claws would not end well at all.

I finally found out that the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing is a reproduction of a satelloon. Greg Allen, one of the speakers, had it fabricated as part of his Exhibition Space exhibit. A satelloon is satellite balloon, of course, and I’m going to bet that either an engineer or scientist came up with that name. NASA made satelloons for Project Echo from 1956-1964. I am not going to describe the whole history because Greg Allen has a great summary of the project and the amazing satelloons. If you want even more history, you can read about it straight from NASA. The history is fascinating.

Thus the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing is really a symbol of some incredible science and engineering history. I still want to play with it though. Also, I took a fun self portrait of myself in the satelloon.

There, dear readers, now you know what I look like.

Finally, if like me, you can’t get enough of the Giant Shiny Ball Play Thing, Heather Goss created this fun Vine video of it being deflated.

Kilograms Do NOT Measure Weight

Posted on June 19, 2013 by geek

I think like many engineers, one of the reasons that I liked the idea of going into engineering was the mistaken belief that a career in engineering meant working with numbers and not having to write. I have never been very good with words. I love numbers. Numbers make sense to me. Words confuse me at times. Also, the English language in general makes no logical sense to me, and I am a native English speaker. [Well, I’m a Southern, so you can go ahead and make an argument against the native English speaker part.] I can’t spell worth crap because of the aforementioned English language illogical thing. This is actually fairly common among engineers. Had my family known the warnings signs, it would have been obvious since I was about 5 years old that I was destined to be an engineer. I have always been good with numbers, and I can’t spell worth crap. Take note parents, as these are the warning signs your child may be an engineer. Also, an early love of duct tape.

I am fairly good with grammar though probably because there are more rules and less exceptions. Partially because of this and for other reasons, at my current job, I often edit other people’s documents not just for science and engineering accuracy but also for grammar, readability, and clarity. I have also been a peer reviewer for a few manuscripts submitted to scientific journals, and previously, I used to edit manuscripts that were about to be submitted to peer review journals. I keep coming across certain words and phrases that are scientifically and grammatically incorrect. There are many grammar style manuals that exist, but I have yet to come across a science grammar style manual. If one exists, I would love for someone to point me to it. So I’ve decided to start writing about some of the most common and inappropriate phrases in the hope that maybe it will stop at least one one person from using these incorrect phrases.

The most common and completely wrong phrase I see is stating that something or someone weighs a certain number of kilograms. Ironically, non-US citizens, i.e. people who live in a country where they use the metric system, are just as guilty of this phrase as US citizens who sort of have the excuse that they live in a country that refuses to stop using the completely archaic and impossible to use if you are a scientist or engineer, English imperial or US customary units. For the benefit of everyone who doesn’t understand why this is wrong, let me explain why it is.

A kilogram is a unit of mass. Mass is the amount of stuff that an object has.

To say something weighs something, you are saying it has a certain amount of weight. A weight is a specific type of force, and because it is a force, weight, like all other forces, is measured in Newtons (N) in the metric system. Weight is the amount of force on an object due to gravity. Therefore, weight is the mass (the amount of stuff) multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity. If you happen to be a person on Earth with a mass of 70 kg, then since the gravitational acceleration on Earth is 9.81 m/s², you have a weight of 687 Newtons (N). Let’s say you happen to be an astronaut, and the Moon program gets revived, and you go to the moon. Your mass will not change. Your mass will still be 70 kg, but once you arrive at the Moon, your weight will be about 114 N because the Moon’s gravitational acceleration is 1.63 m/s². While you are on your journey to the Moon in space, there will be no gravity, so you will have no weight. You will be weightless, hence the fun videos of astronauts floating, but you will still have the same 70 kg mass.

To review, a person or an object has a mass that can be measured in kg. A person or an object that is on any celestial body with gravity has a weight that can be measured in N. It is completely incorrect to say that a person or an object has a weight in kg. It is also confusing. Does it mean you have a mass in that number of kg? Does it mean you have a weight in that number of N, not kg? Please, don’t use kg and say weight. Mass and weight are not interchangeable. They do not mean the same thing.

NY Transit Museum

Posted on June 2, 2013 by geek

As should be completely obvious from the name of this site, I am in fact a geek. Specifically, I am a geek about about all things science and engineering. I visited the New York Transit Museum on my most recent trip to New York City, and I loved it. I can see how if you are not a geek or into mass transit, you might not enjoy it. The museum is housed, quite fittingly, in an abandoned subway station in Brooklyn.

The museum starts with exhibits on how the subway tunnels were built. It does a really good job of portraying the amazing work and hardships the workers endured and how they had to fight for the pay they deserved. We now have modern tools, tunnel boring machines, and much stricter safety standards. They for the most part had picks, wood, concrete, and brute strength. It has some exhibits of the tools used including surveying tools. I took surveying in college, so I went into geek mode when I saw the below exhibit. I used a transit in surveying, but it was a more modern one. [Modern surveying is done with a theodolite, but you have to learn the basics first with a chain, transit, and plumb.] Next to the transit in the photo is a linked chain. It is labeled as a surveying chain. Personally, I think they should label it more properly and specifically as Gunter’s chain, which by the way is 66 feet long, and the tool by which much of United States and other countries were originally surveyed. I had never actually seen a Gunter’s chain before, so I enjoyed seeing one. In surveying I learn to throw a chain and survey with a “modern” chain, which is a steel tape type chain.

It has exhibits on how the subways are powered, including information on electricity generation and transmission.

It has a history of mass transit in New York City, including the various forms of mass transit starting with horses. It also has exhibits on buses, and when I was there, it had a special exhibit on the past Miss Subways, which I had no idea had been a thing. They used to have a beauty pageant for everything I guess. As it is housed in an old subway station, on the old station platform, they have several old subway trains from the first models up to modern ones. You can walk through them, which is kind of neat.

Also within the subway platform is, what I think they called, a subway switching tower. It was the control area to watch and regulate where the trains were.

Finally upstairs, they have some exhibits that I am fairly sure you just have to be a geek to love. They have an exhibit of old turnstiles.

Perhaps my favorite, is an exhibit of various subway coin slugs that people have used to try to avoid paying the fare. Some were quite inventive. Some were just hilarious.

That was my visit to the New York Transit Museum. If you love mass transit, or you are a geek, go check it out when in New York.

Bottling Wine

Posted on May 28, 2013 by geek

I spent last Friday at the Philip Carter Winery, small winery in Hume, Virginia helping them bottle wine. A couple of times a year when the wine is ready to be bottled, they invite people who love their wine to come help them bottle it. They pay the volunteers for their help with lunch, wine, more wine, and then more (bottled) wine to take home. A friend invited me to join her with this bottling work. It sounded like a great deal to me, not to mention fun, but I didn’t realize how much I would geek out and have fun learning about the bottling operation. I learned that small wineries hire a bottling operation on wheels to come to their winery and bottle their wine when it is ready. An entire bottling operation fits on the back of medium sized truck. It is totally cool in my humble geeky opinion.

Like at all wineries, the wine is aged in barrels. It is later transferred to stainless steel vats.

Vats of wine, the ones with the attached tubes are being drained to be bottled

Four of these vats were bottled that day. In the morning, two vats of Chardonnay were bottled, and in the afternoon two vats of Cabernet Franc were bottled. When a vat is completely empty, workers make sure all wine makes it from the vat to the bottling operation through the tubing through a highly technical process called “walking the line.” This entails people lifting the tubing up and letting gravity move the final volume of wine towards the pump. “Walking the line” also involves everyone yelling down the line “walking the line” so that the person inside the bottling truck knows the final volume of wine is coming.

Winery employees “walking the line”

Empty bottles are loaded onto a conveyor belt on the right side of the back of the truck. The people loading the empty bottles generally enjoy drinking wine while working.

Empty bottles on the conveyor belt to be filled with wine

The bottles are first washed. A stream of water is squirted into the upside down bottle.

Water is squirted into the bottle in the middle

After the water drains, air is blown into the bottles to dry them. The bottles are then turned right-side up, and carbon dioxide is blown into them. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air, so carbon dioxide fills the bottle and forces air out of the bottle. This keeps the bottle free of oxygen before being filled with wine. Oxygen reacts with, or oxidizes, wine causing it to lose flavor.

The upside-down bottles on the left are being washed, and the upside-down bottles on the right are being dried by blown in air. On the far right, the right-side up bottle with the machinery attached to it, is being filled with carbon dioxide.

The bottles are then filled with wine. They are actually slightly overfilled.

Bottles being filled with wine

A small amount of wine is then removed from the bottle to make the wine volume exactly 750 ml. Evidently it is easier to make sure the correct amount is in the bottle by overfilling then removing the extra. Then the cork is pushed into the bottle.

Corks in the bin before being placed in the bottles

The bottle on the left is having the excess wine removed, and the bottle in the middle is having the cork pushed into it.

A laser then checks that the cork is in the bottle, and then the seal is placed over the bottle.

Stacks of seals ready to be dispensed

A laser (the visible red dot) checks that a cork is in the bottle in the middle, and then a seal is placed over the bottle on the right.

The seal is then pressed and stretched over the bottle to give a good seal.

Seals are stretched and pressed over the bottle.

The front and back labels are then placed on the bottle. The front and back labels are on the same roll.

Labels being dispensed from roll

The whole bottling operation machinery is ridiculously compact.

The entire process, in the foreground is the sealer, behind it the corker, then the filler, then the washer in background

The finished bottles come out the back of the truck on the left side of the truck, five feet or so from where the empty bottles entered. They are checked by a person to make everything is perfect then put in a case.

Finished, filled bottles leave the bottling operation

The final product from the operation is delicious bottled wine. I want to thank the Philip Carter Winery for allowing me to help, a wonderful day, and all the delicious wine. Also, I would like to thank the operator of the bottling truck (whose name I am horribly sorry to say I don’t remember) for giving me a tour of the truck and explaining the whole process. It was great fun and incredibly interesting.

Two of the final products from that day and my reward for helping to bottle the wine

Geeky Girl Engineer’s Home DIY Tips for Morons

Posted on February 24, 2013 by geek

I have been renovating my current house for two years now, and I realized before I bought it that it had been built and originally owned by smart, caring home owners, but it was later owned and “renovated” by morons. Therefore, in order to help and possibly stop morons out there, I have decided to start a new, sporadically reoccurring series of posts called “Geeky Girl Engineer’s (GGE’s) Home DIY Tips for Morons.” First, a few disclaimers though as to why you should either ignore or not ignore anything I write.

I am not a licensed contractor of any type. I am also not a home renovation expert.
I however have owned and renovated three homes. Much of the work I did myself.
I am a licensed professional engineer (PE), but I am by no means selling or marketing my services as a PE. Also, I am an environmental engineer, so I am more knowledgable about wastewater and hazardous waste and not so much about structural engineering such as one needs when designing and sometimes renovating a house. I hired a licensed structural PE to help with a portion of my current house’s renovation because I demolished a structural wall.
As an engineer, I have been known at times, to adhere to the engineer’s adage which is:
1. If it doesn’t move and it’s supposed to, use WD-4.
2. If it moves and it’s not supposed to, use duct tape.
3. If those don’t work, use a hammer to bang the crap out of it. This may not solve the problem, but it will make you feel much better.
4. If all else fails, use C-4.

OK, I totally made up number 4. I have never actually worked with explosives, which is disappointing. Actually, that is not entirely true. I have used picric acid in a dilute solution before to measure creatinine in urine. However it was always in solution and kept in a plastic container and never at risk of exploding.
As a female, unlike some but not all males, I read the directions. I even read the directions when it is something from IKEA and the directions involve a strange cartoon man, and no matter how well you follow the directions, you always have leftover: three screws, four washers, two nuts, and five wooden dowels. No matter if the piece does not involve wood, there will still be wooden dowels included. Also, I now have a fine collection of Allen wrenches.
I know what I can and can’t do. I also know what I shouldn’t do. I know when to call in professionals. As a chemical engineer, I have the book knowledge to design a petroleum refinery, but I don’t have a clue how to change the oil in my car. I leave that to the professionals, who can also recycle the oil. I fully understand fluid dynamics, pipe sizing, friction factors, municipal waster and waster design, etc. However, I still use a professional plumber for tasks larger than changing o-rings or existing faucet heads, etc.
I am a natural blond.

So, while many might be able to learn something from this series of posts, before you attempt any type of home do-it-yourself (DIY) tasks, please try to figure out if you are in fact, a moron. Consider the follow questions:

Has anyone ever told you that you are a future Darwin award winner or that you almost won a Darwin award?
If you have an electric outlet with two holes, but your plug has three prongs, is your solution to cut the third prong off the plug?
Do you believe building codes are silly and not in the least useful?
Have you ever seen something you did or something very similar to something you did on There I Fixed It? Or are you confused as to why some things are on that site because they look perfectly fine to you?
Do you think that when a female is raped, her “body has a way to shut that whole thing down” to avoid getting pregnant?
Have you ever opened a box containing electronics or some other non-food item, found a little packet and thought “oh nice, it came with a snack,” only to be disappointed when it said “don’t eat”?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you might be a moron. If you are going to do anything more complicated than changing a light bulb in your home, you might want to consider calling in a professional. Actually, you may want to consider if you are even capable of changing a light bulb. After all, someone had to be the inspiration for all those “how many _____ does it take to change a light bulb” jokes. Please consider carefully. Your future self, and any future owners and occupants of your home will thank you for it.

There is the introduction. Stay tuned for tips based on the incredibly stupid things I have encountered in this house. Contact me if you have questions. Contact me if you have tips or photos of really stupid things done at your house that you would like to share with the morons out there as something not to do. I can promise that if you ask me a question, and I don’t know the answer, I will not make up an answer, but I may be able to refer you to some sites with actual valuable information.

Short Term Radon Test Results

Posted on February 22, 2013 by geek

Previously I wrote that I was testing my house for radon. I got the test results back this week, and the test results came back as an average radon level of 2.9 pCi/L. The good news is this is less than the 4 pCi/L action level. The bad news is this is still elevated above average house level of 1.3 pCi/L. This test involved collecting radon over four days. At work, I am currently working on a project that involves looking at the indoor air variability due to radon or volatile organic compounds intrusion from the soil and groundwater. Thus, I know better than most how variable indoor air concentrations can be. They can vary a lot. Therefore, before deciding what to do, I have considered the following items:

The test was done in winter under proper closed house conditions. Closed house conditions means keeping the doors and windows closed except for normal entering and exiting the house through the doors. This is not an issue in the winter because it is cold. This is also one of the reasons winter is one of the best time to perform the test, but it also means that the test will lead to higher results than if more open house conditions are maintained. When the weather is nice, I like to open the windows and doors, so that would generally mean at least during those times, the radon concentrations in my house should be much lower.
The test was performed over four days. As I stated, indoor air concentrations can vary a lot, and in terms of those fluctuations, four days is relatively short term. Even ignoring the seasonal effect of closed versus open house conditions, the long term average radon conditions could be much higher or lower than 2.9 pCi/L. The reasons are not fully understood, but exterior temperatures and precipitation can affect it. A long term test over several months or even better a year, will give a much better understanding of the average concentration. If the results had been 1.3 pCi/L or less, than given the conditions, I would probably not be at all worried that the long term concentrations would be higher.
The EPA recommends that the test be performed in lowest habitable portion of the house. As such, I placed the test in the guest room for that and other reasons stated previously. However, I am almost never in the guest room. I don’t have guests that often, and the door to that room remains shut most of the time. Thus the only air exchange in the room is via the ventilation ducts and a little underneath the door. Furthermore, my bedroom and all the common areas of the house (kitchen, living room, etc.) where I spend most of my time are upstairs and should have lower radon concentrations than the guest room. Therefore, even if the results from the guest room do accurately represent average radon concentrations, they are borderline for taking mitigation action and probably represent the highest levels in the house. While I don’t want to expose my guests to undue risks, especially since my guests are generally people I like or love, do I want to mitigate based on the results from this room?
Finally, I’m a scientist, and I believe in validation and replication. This was one test result, and home test kits are generally not considered the gold-standard of any type of test. There is no doubt at least of some amount of inaccuracy with it.

Therefore, I have decided to test the house again, but this time for a longer duration. I have also decided to run two tests simultaneously. I plan to place two testers in the house, one in the guest room again and one upstairs in my master bedroom. I have ordered a long term home test kit that can be used to test between 90 and 365 days. I plan to run the test over an entire year to get a much better indication of what the long term average radon concentrations are in the house. Also, by testing both the guest room and master bedroom, I can better understand what my average exposure is both in terms of the average annual concentration and in the rooms where I spend the vast majority of my time. I will also add that while the guest room is a guest room now, as it is bedroom, legally and real estate-wise speaking, and thus in the future it could be a normal bedroom if my life changes or if I sell the house. Therefore I still consider it important to know what the long term radon concentrations are.

Check back in a year, and I will let you know what happened and how I am proceeding.