Living Near Power Line

Hard to say since you don't give us much in the way of voltages present in the transmission line.

Generally, the closer you are to the lines, the worse it is for you.

Abhay here...

I am not sure about the voltages on those lines but we can assume that they are very high. I thought that 160 meters is long enough from the power lines but when I surfed on the netI found that its not so long.

Regards,

Abhay

Hi, I think the voltage stuff on the lines near my house is something as below... 220/22kV EHV 100MVA I did not understood the above stuff fully Regards, Abhay

Abhay, how did your experiment go? Did it help reduce the EMF level at all?

Thanks.

Abhay here... Not yet, I am yet to move to this new location....but I guess I will move out of this new house asap. I wish that god destroys the nearby power lines/sub station or moves it to a remote location away from population. Regards, Abhay

Abhay here... In that case plz prove me wrong, buy my house :) BTW any sane person will understand that when I said destroying the powerlines it meant that I was kidding. Regards, Abhay

Sorry . Sarcasm/humor is not obvious in text form unless emoticons are used. There are many committed extremists who would take your jovial(?) statement as deadly serious, so one should be cautious when making such statements.

From your description, I would not hesitate to live in such a house. I WOULD be concerned about future resale value because of the unfortunate hype surrounding this issue.

There is currently no absolute proof for or against low level EM health effects. All studies claiming definitive health problems are filled with either bad scientific methodology or laughable statistical manipulation. One must also read and understand the definitions of "correlation" and "causation". Just because someone claims a correlation does NOT mean there is proof of causation.

Each individual needs to evaluate possible life/health dangers and adjust their lifestyle as they see fit. If you don't want to be eaten by sharks, don't swim where they eat. If you don't want to live near existing power lines or substations, choose another location. Prudent avoidance is usually easy to practice.

The potentially bad health effects due to toxins in food, water, and air, along with ANY electrical wiring you have inside your house and portable electronic devices you hold near your head are possibly orders of magnitude MORE damaging than your local HV lines. This is another area where typical studies fail miserably. Unless ALL health factors are documented and considered, including heredity and every environmental factor from birth through the entire life of the test subject, low level EM exposure cannot be isolated as the sole cause of health problems.

Best wishes.

Do you leave in Durham, NC?

What REAL evidence do you know of that there is any harm at all even if you lived directly under the lines? By real, I mean scientific, with double-blind research over a period of years, scientifically evaluated for normal epidemiological variations in a study population etc. etc. Most of the stuff published is junk science fomented by people who don't want to live with the aesthetics of power lines but couldn't stir up enough trouble about that alone. The one single study in Sweden that got everyone excited turned out to have serious serious flaws in it's conclusions and has been debunked time and time again, yet the myth persists...

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about the mains electricity, but nothing definite.

The below is a small sample of links that will give the reader an overhaul view of current knowledge; I have selected links from most of the governing bodies who are supposed to protect the UK public.

Other links are here to balance up the evidence.

I have read some of them and there is no actual evidence that they are dangerous. I would say that most people who get diseases have a predisposition to the illness - the same is true of smokers who smoke 40 cigs a day for the last 40 years and nothing has happened to them - but there is evidence that secondary smoke i.e. smoke you inhale from someone else smoking can be hazardous, but not to all.

Basically, I would say if you've got the predisposition for cancer all you need is the trigger.

I can't stand under transmission lines for as long as I can hear the mains hum and start to get a headache, but I also get a headache using a mobile phone. Some years ago when I was a mobile phone engineer, I cooked an apple by sticking it on the ariel of what was then a portable Motorola nicknamed "the brick" because it was about the same size as a house brick; these could put out 4 watts on full power, which it was as I was programming it at the time.

Some years ago I was working on an experimental x-ray device for detecting bones etc. in chicken; I was working inside a lead lined room with the x-ray tube on full power because the safety interlocks were not working - oh joy (now x-rays, as I am sure you know, are weird - they go through everything like it's not there except thick lead).

Well, in theory, I should be dead, and some people think I am.

But it had no effect (yet!!!!) and that was 10 years ago (dead man walking).

By the way, I am a radio ham and have spent a lot of time making ariels with the tx power on and again nothing has happened...yiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeet ( just joking).

You will have to read it all and make your own mind up, sorry.

Health effects:

The only practical way that ELF fields interact with living tissues is by inducing electric fields and currents in them. However, the magnitude of these induced currents from exposure to ELF fields at levels normally found in our environment is less than the currents occurring naturally in the body.

Electric Field Studies: Available evidence suggests that, apart from stimulation arising from electric charge induced on the surface of the body, the effects of exposures of up to 20 kV/m are few and innocuous. Electric fields have not been shown to have any effect on reproduction or development in animals at strengths over 100 kV/m.

Magnetic Field Studies: There is little confirmed experimental evidence that ELF magnetic fields can affect human physiology and behaviour at field strengths found in the home or environment. Exposure of volunteers for several hours to ELF fields up to 5 mT had little effect on a number of clinical and physiological tests, including blood changes, ECG, heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature.

CR4 Admin: Modified Post

Copyright Violation: Reduced copied text according to copyright law. Please see Section 13 of the CR4 FAQ about posting copyrighted material.

complete article https://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/313/7064/1047

Some other links (nothing has really been proven though)

Guidelines regarding building near power lines by National Grid (the UK providers of the electrical transmission lines):

https://www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk/Stokepowerlinesurvey.pdf

https://www.hps.org/hpspublications/articles/powerlines.html

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=living+near+power+lines&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&ei=AEMZTNysAaG80gSNoojLCw

Very comprehensive. Thanks for that effort.

Very comprehensive. Thanks for that effort.

Abhay here......

Hi JRaef,

In one of similar threads I read that you live near such power lines from last 12 years and that too some what close. Did you had any child birth in your new house without any issues and health problems for the newly born child? And did he/she grew up as healthy adult?

Some body said that erecting a 5 meter copper wire mesh around the building as a fence can completly eliminate the EMF issue, as an electric engineer what do you think? will that help?

I feel fully down man due to my new discovery of power lines near my building - new house. I never ever saw those power line towers and now suddenly I became enlightined. BTW I used wikimapia/google earth and found out that the popwer sub-station is about 480 meters from my house in the building and the power lines are about 220 meters.

Regards,

Abhay

You could surround your house with mesh ( a faraday shield)

seems a bit over the top.you could try shielding on the side nearest the powerlines thus providing a ground for the energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=faraday+shield&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=VkgaTO6kD8L54Aa8hqXICg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CD4QsAQwAw

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=faraday+shield&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&ei=VkgaTKPDAo204Qa6ib2RCg

Thank you very much Peterq7lyq

I am a male, I cannot give birth

My wife has, but we lived elsewhere at the time. My youngest, now 21, grew up in this house since age 9. She is healthy, happy, a 4.0 student who just received her BS degree in psychology. Other than having a lunatic for a father, she has had no ill effects from growing up in this house.

There are several families on my street who have lived here since the 1970s when the development was built that have indeed given birth to and raised children to adulthood while living here, not a single one has health issues.

there is also a large sub station about 200 yards from my house as well. I can often feel the vibrations from the transformers in the ground at night when all other things are still and quiet. My only concern there is if an oil filled transformer were to explode and burn, but there is a large buffer zone around the sub-station.

Did I mention the precautions I take?

how to protect yourself from emf on google

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+to+protect+yourself+from+emf&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-gb:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GZEU_en&redir_esc=&ei=fZoaTJCEKoGV4gbl89G7Cg

extreme example of a faraday sheild.

http://www.webridestv.com/videos/struck-by-lightning---top-gear-143434

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUUOdO6eEZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8xt9AP41-A

Farady Shielding examples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_Z7LGZ1AM&feature=related

Hope you feel better, the cure is easy, the shield can be made from anything that conducts electrity, including alumium foil, chicken wire, etc it doesnt have to be solid metal as in a foil a mesh will work as well.

my first approach would be a metal not plastic coated chain link fence along the side of the property between the property and the power line

then the property itself starting just below where the chain link stops

Hi peterg7lyq, Thank you for your efforts and time my friend!!! Regards, Abhay

Hi all, I have some doubts here... 1) In a faraday's cage if I keep a cell phone will it connect to the incomming call? I tried a small experiment, I put my cell phone in a small metal box and shut ht top metal lid. Now I tried to call my cell from another cell phone which was not successful - ok so experiment successful. But, I did a variation and opened the lid of the metal box, now when I tried to call the cell inside the box I could connect. why? Another variation I tried, same apparatus as above, just that I inverted the lid of the metal box and kept it on the box, obviously the lid was not secured on the metal box so may be some minute gaps were there. Now I again tried to connect the cell phone inside the box and I could connect. why? Is this something to do with the frequency? since cell phone works on Very high frequency the gap which was between the lid and the box allowed the electro magnetic waves to enter the box? Now applying this concept of Faraday's box to my home, how will I cover all walls with themetal plates to make it faraday's cage? Also the most important, what about the power lines EMF radiations? If I surround the building compound with a wiremesh (it will have small holes) will it stop the EMF from power lines? but just surrounding the compound by wire mesh sheets wont make it a faraday's cage!!! then what to do? Too many questions :) Thanks, Abhay

I forgot, waht about thr grounding? Also as Peter said about the chain, this chain surrounds the compound or just its to be put between the powerline and the compound? little confused here so can you plz elaborate? Thanks, Abhay

1 when you opened the metal box you broke the cage the cage has to be complete for it to block radio signals

frrequencies have wavelenths full . three quarter. five eights. half. quarter wave (wish i had never started this)

now there are harmonics 1st 2 nd 3 rd etc and the harmonics are less strong than the fundemental frequencies.

so what your aiming for is the minimum size to stop the frequencies getting past the mesh.

so if you was to put up a mesh of say at least 1 foot square or round that should stop 50 hertz. ok

the cell phone works on about 900 mhz so at quarter wave thats 3.28 inches 0.2733333333333333 feet

but at 50 hertz ( mains india) thats 59040000 inches

or 4920000 feet

so in theory a mesh slightly smaller than 4920000 feet will stop emf at 50 hertz

got it my fault i suppose i didnt explain it.

at mains the mesh can be enourmas (big)

http://www.csgnetwork.com/freqwavelengthcalc.html

Hi Peter , Really sorry but m again confused, by mesh slightly smaller than 4920000 feet will stop emf at 50 hertz - what does it mean? 4920000 feet tall? or??? fully confused here. Any video or document about covering the compound with such a mesh? Also, if I surround the building compound with such a mesh fence then how will the faraday's cage be complete???? As the top portion of such cage will be missing!!! Any grounding work to do along with above stuff? I am completely new to this stuff and so this seems to go a lil bouncer to me! Regards, Abhay

ah no probs some of this you will have to take on faith because its so complex.

in the house you don't need to completely screen the building as that would be difficult.

If you place a screen of the correct mesh between the house and the power lines and earth the mesh the mesh will work like a dam holding back water, some water will splash over but a lot less than not having the dam there.

are you with me so far ?

now doing the screening like this will dampen the field considerably

now if you was to put another mesh above the dam starting just below the top of the dam you can build the screen up in stages

so the first stage place a fence along the side nearest the power line.

the next fence slightly higher

the third fence overlapping the second and so on.

please don't experiment just believe me.

I know its hard to understand theres a lot i don't understand about wave theory, the radio waves sometimes act live waves and sometimes act like particles have you ever listened to the car radio when traveling slow and noticed the radio go quiet ( thats because the signal has been blocked or cancelled out ( nuts shouldn't have mentioned that ) and when you move forward a few inches the signal returns ?

the canceling bit relates to the signal bouncing of say two structures ie buildings and both these signals arrive at the same location at the same time ie your car and cancel each other out.

did you know if you invert a sound signal and play it back towards the speaker at just the right time relative to the sound reaching you you can cancel the sound out so its quiet, baffling isn't it

its a very complex subject and you just need to accept it or study radio propagation and then you will be as confused as i am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic

sorry i cant work out precise size because the figure are so big perhaps someone else can work out the 4th harmonic of 50 Hz which i think is about 8.3333 hertz

which is so big

i will get back to you but suffice it to say the standard 3 inch square chain link fence will do until i work out the correct size

Sure thanks! But can u giv any photo of the chain fence which should surround the compound? This will give me some idea as I am not getting as to how to fence the compound. A pic should explain. thanks, Abhay

http://www.elmac.co.uk/consultancy.htm

http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/emp_and_faraday_cages.htm

http://www.euro-emc.co.uk/datasheets/Magnetic/Electromagnetic%20(EMF)%20screening.pdf

the aqbove should help. if i come across anything else i will post it

Thanks a lot!!! Regards, Abhay

pylonhouse

Excessive concern about a small probability of EM health effects will cause excessive physical stress. This "worry" stress can weaken your immune response which could allow some ailment (cancer, stomach ulcers, etc.) to develop and kill you long before any possible EM exposure can do damage.

Since there is a lack of credible data for or against EM health effects, you have to choose what is an acceptable risk level or what is "prudent avoidance" for yourself and your own peace of mind.

If the proximity of the power lines is truly unacceptable to you, the sooner you move away from them, the happier you will be.