Comparison of radon doses based on different radon monitoring approaches

Abstract

In 43 places (23 schools, 3 kindergartens, 16 offices and one dwelling), indoor radon has been monitored as an intercomparison experiment, using α-scintillation cells (SC – Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia), various kinds of solid state nuclear track detectors (KfK – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany; UFO – National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, Japan; RET – University College Dublin, Ireland) and active electronic devices (EQF, Sarad, Germany). At the same place, the radon levels and, consequently, the effective doses obtained with different radon devices differed substantially (by a factor of 2 or more), and no regularity was observed as regards which detector would show a higher or lower dose.