How long would it take a typical American home to be safe from dangerous radiation levels after a nuclear bomb

Answer 1

If your house is still standing - about 40 years is the time it takes for the fallout to reach safe levels.

Unless you line it with about 2inches of lead, or a 1metre membrane of concrete.

But to be honest Id worry more about the lack of unpoisoned food and water, not to mentioned the nuclear winter.

Lovely thought isnt it.

Answer 2

40 years is usually the time radiation will reach normal-ish levels. It should take only about 10 before you can live there again. 1 year before it is kind is safe to live if you don't care about cancer. 2 months before it is safe to walk around outside and evacuate at your own leisure. 2 weeks before you can leave your underground shelter and evacuate safely. 48 hours before you can leave your underground shelter, hop in a car, and floor it to the nearest safe zone, hopefully leaving the radiation zone within the hour or risk death.

Depending on the radiation levels and how close you are to the bomb, times vary. However, if you need an underground shelter to survive in the first place, your house is a no-go and will be a death trap.

A basement will protect you from the initial nuclear blast if you are more than a mile away from ground zero. However, once the blast is over, get out. Start running for the hills. If you see snow in the summer, cover your mouth and keep running until the grass is green, the skies are clear, and the birds are making pretty noises. Or take cover underground.

However, most of these time estimates are very conservative. Some bombs are so efficient that they don't leave any trace of radiation at all.

Two cities have been nuked in history, both are fine today.

They are different from Chernobyl in that a bomb consumes all of the radioactive fuel in a single moment with only a miniscule amount left over. Most fallout is made from sand and dirt that was thrown into the air and blasted with radiation. They are only temporarily radioactive.

Simply put, it depends on how you are bombed and with what type of bomb. Not all nukes are made equal or used the same way.

Answer 3

It depends on the type of weapon detonated. I'm assuming you're asking the protective nature of the building in event of radioactive fallout. The fallout will basically fill the air around the house and gradually be brought to the ground in the form of rain and blown around due to wind. The building itself, even designed as a bomb shelter, will only resist the radioactivity from entering it. A modern home has little or no protective value (you have windows, cracks in your building, usually not made of thick brick walls anymore). This is why bomb shelters are usually underground, but again, those are designed to protect against the immediate effects of the bomb and minimize fallout damage, eventually they too will become contaminated (you have to breathe). After the area is entirely contaminated, you have to wait for the radioactive isotopes in the air to decay to their non radioactive results. This depends on the material and can be anywhere from a few decades to tens of thousands of years.

Answer 4

Actully, an American home is only safe if it is dug well underground. So in fact, the ability to be safe from a nuclear bomb is already here.

Answer 5

It depends what part of the yield zone from ground zero, how many kilotons the bomb was, what kind of radiation, and if it was a air burst, surface, or subsurface type explosion. It also depends on weather, wind direction, and terrain to tell what exact amount of radiation would be detected years to come after a nuclear detonation.
It's hard to determime unless you know those facts.

Answer 6

In theory, yes. In practice, we do not yet have the technology to engineer such a device. In theory, you could compress Deuterium with high-energy lasers to fuse into Helium, but that degree of coordination has never been done yet. The results would be a brief blast of radiation and a tremendous explosion, but there would be no lasting fallout.

Answer 7

Many variables, such as fallout density, type of weapon, proximity to blast, immediate and long-term weather patterns, yeild in kilotons, altitude of detonation, and overall size of the total nuclear strike.

I'd be more concerned about long-term health problems. Houses can be rebuilt. Three-eyed children can't.

Answer 8

It depends on the level of radioactivity received, so how far are you from the bomb? What are isotopes used in the bomb?

Answer 9

I read somewhere that your average yield hydrogen bomb, triggered to go off over New York, would take 32, 000 years before anyone could go there again, without being irradiated. Frightening, isn't it?

Answer 10

a typical american home could never withstand a nuclear bomb.