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Real Life EMF Experiences?
ilander asks: "I've been looking to buy my first home recently and found one that seemed perfect. The one downside is that there are power lines directly overhead (in the yard) as well as a high tension power line tower in the empty lot in back, less than 200 feet away from the house.
So does anyone have any personal experience working/living near power lines? Aside from the possible health risks, which may or not exist (depending on who you ask), will I run into any problems with my monitors and TVs? What about DSL, cable and my 802.11b network? How about digital satellite reception?
Any help is appreciated!"
The government mind-rays will be scrambled by the high-energy power lines.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
That and buying a Jesus Jones album are my two great regrets from childhood..
Sure - I'll die a slow and painful death from cancer, but will my TVwork? :)
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
You may want to ask how it might impact your health. Google it to find articles like this one in Wired.
Mysterious Kokomo Hum
I grew up near Kokomo and still have relatives that live there. However none of them have ever complained of the hum.
Our first house was in close proximity to overhead powerlines. They were less than 200 ft away. More like less than 50.
The three years we lived there, we didn't notice anything strange health-wise.
I recall seeing some people do the following (not sure if this is indicative of possible health issues):
1.Take a florescent light bulb - like the overhead lights in most garages and offices. Make sure its dark out.
2. Stand under the powerline.
3. Grab the light fixture with both hands - one at either contact point (the metal ring around the outside, not the pins).
4. See if the light glows.
The theory (I guess) was that this indicated power/voltage/whatever was 'bleeding' from the powerlines. The folks who did this swore this was proof that the area wasn't safe to live in.
YMMV.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
If you can light sabre duels in your backyard with flourescent tubes that may be a clue that the house may not be safe...
but then again, given the overall attitude you may think thats a selling point...
I just hope you don't have any small children... And if not, get a vasectomy
--
...I do. And the third hand is indeed as useful as many seem to believe.
...
BIggest issue I see is resale value. How long you plan to stay will affect things also. You may well be convinced that there are not problems with the power lines but it will be difficult to convince someone else to take it off your hands in x number of years.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
I lived 15 years or so 200 feet from high voltage lines. And 500 from a substation. My family and my neighbors are fine. Of course I post on Slashdot so I guess that answers you question. I don't think anything happens from being near them. I didn't even care about it when I found out something might happen.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
1) purchase house
2) purchase rats
3) in a spare room build 2 rat cages, one that is also a faraday cage.
4) treat both groups of rats the same. no fair giving extra snuggles to the ones in the faraday cage
5) every year, have a vet check both groups of rats. If there is no difference, then chances are you don't have a problem. If the group NOT in the faraday cage has more health problems, move asap.
I worked my way through college installing sprinkler systems for lawns and landscapes. We used a 16' metal trailer with an expanded steel deck, a steel pipe rack, and several metal lockers. On one job we parked the trailer under high voltage powerlines and got a sizeable shock if we touched the trailer with damp boots or sweaty hands.
I have also head of people filling a 55 gallon drum with coils of copper wire and stealing power from high-tension wires.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
It was a particularly cold night in winter and I was walking out to open the gate to the yard; there'd been a sleet and the fence was coated with ice. Except... When I walked up to the lock, I noticed that one length of chain between the gate and post was free of ice. When I touched it, it was noticeably warm.
I went back to get my meter, unhooked the chain, and measured the voltage between the gate and post; it measured a wonderful 2.7 volts. Silly me, I then switched the meter to measure current. What as I thinking, using a cheap multimeter across enough current to heat up a heavy metal chain? Luckily I only blew its fuse.
I called the power company and told them about the stray voltage problem; within a few days they'd established a new ground and my fence is now down to 1/2 volt.
Despite all the people who want to sue to make a buck, there is *no* scientific evidence that living near power lines, using cellphones, or sending your kids to a WiFi enabled school will hurt anyone.
The hype would make you believe that power lines harm plants and the like. I've seen with my own eye someone who planted a nice garden in the base of a high tention power line. It did very well, limited only be the care the owners gave it.
There was a lot of worry about power lines 10 years ago or so. Many studies have been done, and the conclusion is always there is no statistical harm. Ignore the alarmists, and buy the house if you like it. If the lines give it a lower value enjoy your lower house payments. (and hope that the hype dies in a few years and your house thus goes up more in value than others when it is time to sell - good luck)
A few months ago, during a rather spectacular thunderstorm, we a lightning strike _very_ close to our house. :)
Most of our NIC cards' and our router's ports got toasted, while leaving the internal circuitry of our computers utterly untouched.. they ran flawlessly both before, through, and after the incident. No reboots, no power glitches.. nada. The cards passed diags fine; the router would boot up ok, too.. except..
None of the lights indicating CAT5 connectivity lit up. Some component substitutions eventually revealed that all of the rj45 interfaces had been smoked.
A final, glaring clue that the lightning bolt's EMP was indeed the culprit was the fact that a 30" tv that had been on in the room at the time now exhibits _severe_ orange and green casts all the way out to the corners of the crt at right angles to each other. The mask is now MAG-MO-TIZED in a major way.
I'm gonna need a really muscular degausser.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
I live less than 200 feet from high tension power lines and have never experenced any problems with the wireless network in my house.
The only real problem I had was putting an addition on my house. In my town, it is against bylaws to put a permanent structure closer than 100 feet from power lines. When my wife and I were in the process of putting one on we had to have our yard surveyed four times, and even then we had to change our plans. The foundation of the new addition is now 100' 1" away from the lines. You may want to think about this, or check your town bylaws if you plan on adding to the house in the future.
There's also a site called Power Line Facts that may be helpful. Like they say, go buy a power meter, then do another house inspection. If the meter's reading 4mG or higher, run away. Fast.
And what's Power Line safety without a blog?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Leukemia.
My sister-in-law's child got leukemia living under power lines. I'm am like so totally sure that was a coincidence, right-o.
You'll be fine if you don't:
1) plan on having any babies
2) plan on ever reselling the place.
Think how many hot dates you'll get when the girls find out why everyone calls you "Sparky".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
There are LOTS of houses on the market. Keep that in mind. It's a cliche, but you'll find there are other nice things out there.
We saw a place with power lines, and took a pass for reasons of concern about resale value. I know, that sounds self-fulfilling, or circular, but it is reality. Later on we realized it was also (in a stealthy, hidden sort of way) near two freeways and one of those nice fragrant water reclamation plants.
We bought a nice place, same money, no freeway noise, but convenient freeway access, no fragrant water reclamation plant nearby, no power lines, close to everything... we are happy.
Hold out for what you really want.
As a amateur radio operator I have heard people that have found radio interference being generated from overhead power lines. Most of the interference has been in the lower frequencies, low as in AM broadcast radio, HF amateur, maybe up to TV and FM broadcast. The causes were something like failing insulators, damaged transformers, and branches falling onto the wires. In most cases a call to the power company would result in a quick fix. It is unlikely to affect higher frequency devices such as WiFi, satellite TV, and cell phones.
One current concern is the possible use of Broadband over Power Lines (BPL). A form of BPL proposed to the FCC would occupy frequecies from 2Mhz to 80Mhz being carried down the medium and low voltage power lines. Since power lines were never intended to carry such high frequencies the amount of "leakage" is likely to be quite high. The leaked RF energy would likely cause all kinds of trouble for electronics in your home. Computer monitors, TVs, radios, etc. all have internal circuits that work at these frequencies and are unlikely to have sufficient shielding since BPL would be allowed much higher levels of leaked energy than seen previous if the law changes go into affect. More info can be found on the American Radio Relay League website (www.arrl.org).
Take a lookt at the Power Lines and Cancer FAQ and decide the risks for yourself. Then remember that you are sitting in front of computer monitor with a flyback transformer producing 20-30kV, and it is 2 feet from your head.
I spent the majority of my childhood in a house about 40 feet from a lot-sized 45kV to 120V transformer substation. The 45kV lines went above my front yard. I never noticed any ill effects health-wise (but then, with the amount of pollution-related health problems in Southern Ontario I'm not sure I ever would've noticed anyway)
Never had any problems with EMF or anything either. Several TVs, fluorescent lights, a few miscellaneous wireless devices (outdoor temperature monitor for example) and none of them ever acted odd.
We did have one problem though. One year they decided to "upgrade" the transformer by replacing the old transformer with two brand new ones. Ever since then, the AC in the house has occasionally (usually hours or days between incidents) developed a slight harmonic flicker that fades in and then back out over the course of about 5-10 minutes. I can see the lights flicker, personally, but no one else ever could even when I pointed it out to them. Confirmed the harmonic with my Dad's oscilloscope, though.
I'm not sure whether it was simply a result of the two transformers occasionally getting out of phase with one another or what, but I personally would've recommended a UPS for any sensitive equipment in that house. My grandmother lives there now, and runs her computer directly off the socket, and has never had a problem though, so *shrug*.
For what it's worth.
Random and weird software I've written.
If the powerlines run over that property, then most likely the power company has an easement, which roughly (I'm no lawyer) means that should something happen, they can wheel a crane into your backyard to do work, and you will have to live with it. And if they have to take the fence down, or nock out part of your house to get there, they will. (Though they will fix it later). You will really have to check this out with the local government, and it may not be that simple.
Another thing is that power lines make noise. It may not seem like much during the day, but it may drive you nuts at night.
I'd stay away from it for just those two reasons.
grisha.org
I'm am like so totally sure that was a coincidence, right-o.
Congradulations. In my experience, non-mathematicians who try to argue with statistics generally invest a great deal of effort clothing their flawed arguments in something that looks vaguely like math, only to hurt their own arguments more than they hurt their opponent's.
You have somehow managed to get most of the negative effects of faulty statistical reasoning without having to bother with all the psuedo-math stuff.
Impressive.
-- MarkusQ
I don't know what the science is, but I know the following:
My aunt, uncle, and cousins lived next to (what I believe was) a cellular-phone tower. My aunt died of breast cancer, my cousin developed a beign tumor on his chest, and my uncle now has cancer (I believe testicular).
Then again, it could be coincidence.
My dad used to study EMF all day at the local power company. This continued after being bought out by a bigger power company in the region, and then stopped when a overseas power company purchased them. Basically his job was to know what EMF was proven to do.
I can't recall all the details now, he doesn't do that anymore, but near as anyone can prove, it doesn't really effect you. There are no health risks that can be linked specifically to EMF. A lot of people throw up EMF health risks to prevent new power lines coming up in their neighborhood, never mind that is causing serious problems for the surrounding area (brown outs and the such). He spent a lot of time going to city council meetings and the like showing people that their health concerns were invalid. In reality they are more worried about their property value.
This is about power lines, not modding!
How is receiving a satellite signal going to irradiate you more or less than not receiving it, assuming you don't stand behind the dish? :-)
Technically, I suppose receiving the signal will expose you to _less_ radiation. Not that the levels are particularly high anyways, considering how little power satellites have available to them in the first place.
If your cable TV cable is actually emitting any measurable signals from anywhere but the termination point, phone the FCC. It won't emit them for very much longer, you can rest assured.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
This may be an urban legend but it was recounted to me by my university lecturer.
A while ago here in blighty there was a court case which involved a gentleman who lived under a power line. The gentleman in question was accused of stealing electricity from the power company and they were trying to prosecute.
He had facilitated the alleged theft by placing one half of a step down transformer in the loft(attic)of his home and fed the output into his electricity supply. He had been gleaning free electricity like this for years.
The court case was dropped when the court explained to the power company that to succesfully prosecute they would have to admit that electro-magnetic radiation was entering the house and therefore existed at points beyond the transmission line previously claimed as safe.
If the power company had pursued the case then it would have opened a flood-gate of suits relating to cancer etc.
Error: sig not found, Please reboot Universe and contact your local system administrator.
I read recently - possibly in a New Scientist magazine - that some researchers had discovered something frightening about EMF radiation. They said that the radiation itself doesn't appear to cause cancer directly, but that when the body is exposed to EMF radiation, it stops repairing damaged DNA sequences so vigoroursly.
Sorry I don't remember too much more about it.
If I were you, I would err on the side of caution and stay right away from the damned things.
When walking under a power line with my glasses on.
Nothing spectacular, just a slight humming and vibration...
how long until
Either it will kill you, or it won't.
..... if you know you'll want to move sooner or later, you would do better to rent, or even squat.
..... if light {and, by extension, all electromagnetic radiation ..... "light" is just the name we give to the band to which our eyes respond} travels in straight lines, then it follows that the power density per unit surface area must vary inversely with the square of distance. So, at two metres away from the source, the field strength is 1/4 of whatever it was at 1 metre; at 10 metres, it's just a hundredth of the strength at one metre.
..... I don't know why and I've given up trying to explain, I just lump it all together under "perversity of human nature" and wait for someone else to come up with a better theory.
If it doesn't kill you, you're fine. Resale value shouln't be an issue. If you can't see yourself living in that house forever, then it obviously isn't the right house for you anyway
If it does kill you, you don't have to worry about the resale value anyway.
Remember the inverse-square law
I am personally convinced that people want things to be bad for them. They just seem to be happier that way
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Forget the interference, I've lost an entire line of relatives who lived in a house approx 150ft from a high-tension power line.
Only one of them turned close to 50, one died to cancer before he was 30.
It was back when the problem wasn't recognized yet (at least here in former soviet union) and they were'nt the only ones in the neighbourhood. Although it seemed that some families had better reisistance, so it's probably genetic.
It all started with one scientist who claimed he had evidence back in the '80s that the EMF did cause problems. So, lots of studies have been done. Tons of studies. All of them came up with the same results: Nada wrt EMF. No effect at "safe" distances.
To qualify "safe": That means you're far enough away that there's not going to be lethal discharges to your body or lethal currents developed in metal objects your wearing or touching (like a car). So, if you're far enough away not to get shocked, your a "safe" distance away.
What DOE found was that the stories were all coincidence. If there was a neighborhood next to a power line with unusually high number of cancer cases, it was because the people were living next to or on top of a chemical dump site. It was the chemicals in the ground from other neighboring industry.
So, they went back to the original scientist and asked to review his data. He'd made it all up. He saw it as a way to boost his funding so he could work on other pet projects. He's been totaly discredited.
As someone mentioned about SCO, the court will want to see that you've taken steps to protect the thing you've lost. So if you came into my court I would say "Mr. Power Company, did you know he could get free power like that just by living there? Did you attempt to purchase the property? No, then have a nice day"
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
My friend lives in a house next to some power lines... He has a 802.11b network that works well.... DSL also has no problems... I've not seen anuthing weird on TV's or monitors (CRT or LCD).... and we set up a satellite dish that pointed through the power lines and got a good signal. They use a standard over the air antenna for local channels, so that works as well....
How can a post with "power/voltage/whatever" be given a +5 rating? And one with "The theory (I guess)" in it as well? The parent was simply an argument from ignorance!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
And do they smoke? Drink lots of caffeine?
Eat meat?
Excercise?
How's your family history of this?
-1, FUD
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If you enjoy amateur radio or shortwave listening, the RF 'hash' coming from the lines will swamp weak signals.
The power company probably has an easement across your property, and can demolish any obstacle in the way of fixing their lines. On the other hand, I know some folk who have effectively gotten the power company to pay them for the loss-of-use of their land.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Well that cuts down the kite flying options.
Public Service Notice: Kites and Power Lines don't mix!
Technically, I suppose not being a fucking troll won't make you any less of a conceited prick, but why not take the chance?
That's right, friends: David Shepherd is a fucking troll.
He declared that he could build a computer that would be as good as but cheaper than any Mac. When challenged, rather than admitting his mistake, or even taking a swipe at it, he just turned and ran away.
David Shepherd is an anti-Apple zealot and a troll. Don't believe a word he says.
Look at the nasty chemicals the power lines use, such as creosote and god knows what else in the wood power poles to prevent rot, incredibly toxic weed killers, nasty PCB based cooling oils in the transformers...
The chemical waste spread underneath and along a power line will kill you dead, the EMF effect, if any, is unimportant.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
...with power lines over the back yard.
So far the only problem has been stepping in the doggie-do. Seems like everybody in the neighborhood walks their dogs in the right-of-way.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
There are transients (spikes) on high voltage lines all the time. At a high enough potential, the lines can accelerate particles electrostatically and magnetically. This gives rise to random bursts of sprays of ions. I would not care to breath around that. Who knows what it does to living tissue?
I seriously doubt you'll have any problems with satellite reception, TVs, or anything else. The power drops off squared with respect to distance. Others have pointed out more realistic issues with buying such a house though -- the biggest is easements and easement access (I once considered a home that had many easements on it, and they were a major reason for why I didn't purchase. That and the fact that cutting a 12" hole into an engineered wood I-beam violates the manufacturer's guarantees), one of the others is that while it may not be an issue to you, it is to many people -- that will affect your future sales price, and is probably affecting the current sale price. If it isn't, then it certainly should (check comparables).
In a similar, but not identical vein, when I was in college I lived in a dorm constructed adjacent to the college radio station broadcast tower (40 KW). The tower was 100 feet from the nearest section of the dorm, and I was in a room that was opposite the nearest dorm room. We had absolutely no problems as things go. The people across the hall (in the closest dorm room) eventually gave up on an answering machine -- their tape kept on getting overwritten by whatever was playing from the broadcast tower. They also had problems with cordless phones. Very odd.
Of course I can't remember which one was bad and which was harmless. He even insinuated that the power companies knew this and that they would selectively choose areas for study where the lines ran in the harmless direction, thus "proving" that there were no ill effects.
Lasers Controlled Games!
There's a case near Seattle right now where several people bought homes near a power line without knowing that it was slated to carry a lot more power than it was currently. When the change was made, it created an audible and annoying hum. ( link)
Moral of the story: Check with whomever owns and operates those lines and see if there are any changes scheduled.
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Oh great, as if there weren't enough things to consider about living next to a tower, now I gotta worry about some nutjob loosening all the foundation bolts! http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/708789 5.htm
If you're being bathed in EMF, this will wreak havoc with AM radio reception, and perhaps sooner than anything else.
Take a portable radio and check to see how close to the lines you have to get before starts noticeably wiping out numerous AM radio signals.
While that makes sense in individual cases, it becomes folly when extended to everything in your life. What if I said that whatever you're having for dinner has a 3% chance of givnig you cancer if you keep eating it? What if I said your specific model of car has a 3% chance of having a rather dangerous, undiscovered defect?
The problem is that there are very few things in life that have been tested safe to within the 97% confidence threshold, particularly when one considers that there's at least a 3% chance that we didn't know how to properly test something.
If you let a 3% chance of danger with regard to something keep you from using it, you might as well be fitted for your bubble now.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Well every time i ride my bike under powerlines a spark goes from the main bar on the bije and shocks my nads. Id say that is a big concern. It doesnt feel good at all.
The only experience I have had was we were located in a building and on a wall that was less than 20 feet from a power substation. If you were sitting next to the wall, you could see the image on your monitor continously waver (kind of like a subtle version of the windoze symbol). Another 10 feet away and you noticed nothing.
I live in a new house about 250 feet away from hi power lines and has not affected anything in my house. I cannot hear any noise from the lines either. A far as resale value goes, if there's a housing shortage, proximity to power lines probably wont be an issue. Besides, power lines provide great places to ride off-road vehicles.
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
if its the radiation that you're worried about then you should worry at least as much about mobil phone because, even if they radiate on low power, they are held very close to your brain. surely the inverse-square law would suggest that more of you are likely to get a fried-brain that way. i've noticed quite a few of those worried about the possibility of danger from power lines do smoke cigarettes. with cigarettes damage to your body rises from a possibility to almost a certainty .. yet that doesn't worry them..
Paul
www.opencouncil.org
Open
On the other hand, that doesn't affect WiFi-equipped schools, unless they're built on chemical waste dumps like the school that cause the Love Canal problem.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Have you ever discharged a little static and zapped yourself or a friend? Well, if you live under the power lines, you better wear a rubber suit everywhere you go in your house, becuase if you let *that* electrical current out... *BZZZZAP* ... and there wont be much left of you, or your new house.
Daniel