Re: Household radioactive materials?

["Dale E. Boyce" <dale@radpro.uchicago.edu>]

An email from Bruce Busby re: the depression glass just jogged
my memory of yet another "household" radioactive material.
Several years ago I was working with a group to develop a
very specialized low background detector to measure Rb-88
from Kr-88 decay.  In our 1st draft we used G-10, the
green stuff that circuit boards are made of, as an insultator.
The resulting detector was anything but low background.
Although you can't readily detect it with a GM, it has enough
Thorium in it to make it an extremely poor choice for use
in detectors if you want any kind of low background capability.
The thorium is in the glass fiber in the fiberglass.

Has anyone measured fiberglass insulation used in homes?

Dale Boyce
dale@radpro.uchicago.edu