Real Life EMF Experiences? 163
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!"
Well, on a positive note... (Score:4, Funny)
Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:4, Funny)
That and buying a Jesus Jones album are my two great regrets from childhood..
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ready to bet your life on the fact that it was? I am not. Let's say there is a 10% chance that these guys were right. Would I risk my life and the ones of my family just because the house in question is a little nicer than another one? No thanks.
I basically think you've got to reorder your priorities. Mine is order this way: Life first. House second. TV/Computer third.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:4, Insightful)
Think about this one: I give you two glasses of water. One looks clean, the other one looks yellowish. But I garantee you that the yellowish one is as safe as the other one. However, you may choose freely either one of them. Are you going to go with the yellowish water? You would be crazy.
Why taking this risk - as small as it may be - when you have equivalent other alternatives ?
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
If you only give me two glasses of water i will drink them both. Infact the color of the water doesnt realy bother me as i am accustomed to drinking well water which can have a tint at times. They say y2k is an issues, so lets stock up like morons with no basis to be the laughing stock for the future. There is always a risk no matter how visible that risk. What may appear to be a better option is not always the better options. Unless you understand %100 of both opt
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Anyways, my point is: If in doubt between two houses, if you like them equally and one has a high tension line just over it, then just go with the other one.
Of course, it might be worse for other factors, but you get to decide with what you know, as always.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe not. The yellowish water might be beer.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Without people trying weird unsafe yellowish funny-smelling water, people never would have invented beer. And what a sad world it would be today.
If everybody took that attitude, we'd still be living in caves and eating our meat cold. Oh, but we'd be safe!
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
And the clear water might be *shudder* Budweiser.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Do you here me Coors? it's not beer.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
You mean everyone drinking lemonade is crazy? Do you want to talk about it?
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the uselessness called 'science' that they teach in schools deals with electrical current and magnetic fields.
IIRC, the strength of an electrical field is 1/(distance^2). If we have two distances, we can calculate the drop in the magnetic field as follows: (1/(d1^2)) / (1/(d2^2)) or, more simply: d1^2 / d2^2. Therefore, the difference between living directly under the power lines (assuming that the power lines are 50ft up in the air) and the difference between living a few houses away (say 200 ft) would be 2500/40000 or 5/80ths (about 6%). Living a few more houses away (say, 200 more ft) would result in a drop of 2500/160000 or about 1.5%
The point of all this math and science is that if power lines can cause cancer, it should be rather easy to detect - cancer rates would be high under the power lines, and fall off sharply.
I have never seen a study with this result, so its probably safe to assume that power lines do not cause cancer.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Even if there is, let's say, a 3% risk of all this stuff to be true, what is the point in taking this risk? Life is at sake in this matter! There is plenty of other houses around! It's not like you're refusing to do something cool or something...
Plus, you will hardly find any relevant statistics about that. People move very often, and if there is any bad effect from it, it is clearly long term. In the village I was mentionning, on
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
The point is, the chance of the figures being right is *not* 3%. The strength of the magnetic fields is small, especially compared to all the electrical equipment you already have in your house. I would worry about incidence of meteorite strikes in the area before power lines.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
I'm not saying, take no risk. But rather measure them. Why taking a risk for no reason? Even if the risk is small, or tiny?
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
High tension lines in the back yard can mean a huge difference in the price of a house, mainly due to people thinking like you. This price difference can easily mean the difference between your three children having to share a bedroom or not. That's a pretty serious quality of life difference.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Let me put this risk in perspective: Do you use an electric shaver or a hair dryer? Do you use headphones? Do you use electric heaters? Do you ride a subway or electric train? Do you watch TV? Do you use a toaster or an electric stove? What these things have in common is that they all will present at least as much EMF as those power lines and in some cases orders of magnitude more.
In other words, the risk of close proximity to high
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Some problems with your point.
First, if I use any of those things (I do) I don't use them ALL THE TIME I AM HOME, while the p
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Well, I don't know of any definitive studies, either, but I DO know of a shocking number of studies done with poor controls and later demonstrated as irreproducible.
Please understand, I don't disagree with your assessment of ionizing radiation. However, besides the well known and well defined effects of thermal heating from
You could say that about anything (Score:2)
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
Re:You could say that about anything (Score:2)
Can you read my post once again (or, say, once)? I am saying that if I have a choice between two houses and I am in doubt, then I'll go with the one that is not under a high tension line. That's all, it's that little thing that will help me decide, it's not anything that will drive my life.
You are also mentionning dinner. It's not like I could avoid having
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
E - Ecstasy
M - Mother fucker, Mother fucker
F - From us to you
I went from thinking they were maybe a little geeky to knowing that they picked the name cause it sounded cool. Sorta like AC/DC.
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
We had the same problem in high school when we started our band, "Man-on-Man Action" (it was obviously a reference to melee combat).
Re:Real-Life EMF Experiences? (Score:2)
The lesson here being, for recording artists, there is a fate worse than obscurity.
Well... (Score:4, Funny)
Health (Score:2, Informative)
You may want to ask how it might impact your health. Google it to find articles like this one in Wired [wired.com].
Re:Health (Score:2)
Some links (Score:3, Informative)
There's also a site called Power Line Facts [powerlinefacts.com] that may be helpful. Like they say, go buy a power meter [powerlinefacts.com], 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 [blogspot.com]?
Re:Some links (Score:3)
Science by legislation is one of the more worrisome aspects of California.
Remember, this is a state that has billboards all over the place proudly proclaiming that they are "nuclear free". My SO and I joke that that's a very very negative statem
Re:Some links (Score:2)
The CA department of health (or OSHA, I'm not sure what's called what there anymore) started requiring restaurants and other hospitality industries to put up visible signs saying something to the extent of,
Great. Why not say "substances which could cause heart disease" (hamburgers), "substances which could cause liver failure" (wine), etc.
The Golden Gate Restauran
Re:Some links (Score:2)
Re:Some links (Score:2)
If you are
Re:Some links (Score:2)
My second statement says nothing about arguing from theory. What I'm arguing is that
Re:Some links (Score:2)
In addition, the "signal" of the 'power line EMF' is also being lost in the other radiations or disease causing agents people are beng exposed to - ionizing radiation, RF radiation, EMF radiation from other-than-power-line sources - a
Kokomo Hum (Score:2, Interesting)
Mysterious Kokomo Hum [go.com]
I grew up near Kokomo and still have relatives that live there. However none of them have ever complained of the hum.
Re:Kokomo Hum (Score:1)
Just kidding
If I remember, a local tv station in Indianapolis (WISH - 8) said it had to do with the big metal foundry near the center of town. They were somehow emmitting large amounts of ELF (extremly low frequency) noise that made other objects vibrate at other frequencies. Hence the "humm".
Re:Kokomo Hum (Score:2)
Re:Kokomo Hum (Score:2)
At the old house (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:At the old house (Score:5, Informative)
You have a changing magnetic field. You create a circuit (albeit one at several megaohms) when you touch the light like that. Indeed, you make a big loop.
You can find the equations for inductance in any elementary physics book. Essentially, the faster the change in magnetic field, the larger the loop the circuit forms, the larger the magnetic field change per unit time (e.g. larger oscillating magnetic field), the higher the electromotive force (voltage) induced.
Note that emv ~ dB/dt * A (B and A are vectors). That is, assuming your circuit is a 2D object (e.g. circle), then you should orient your circuit such that the magnetic field is perpendicular to it. This will give you the maximum effect.
Again, refer to college physics textbooks for more information on the subject.
Synopsis: good for scare-mongering (but remember, scare mongering's Good when you agree with the goals of the scare-mongering (e.g. nuclear power dangers) and Bad when you don't (e.g. Bush's terrorism stuff)!) but otherwise fairly pointless, unless the induced voltages and/or B/E-fields are scientifically proven to be dangerous to humans. To my knowledge, it's currently a wash. Note that statistical data for a region is questionable, since many factors enter in! (The prime exampe for correlation-does-not-prove-causation amongst my professors is the study that showed that, the more electric poles per square mile, the higher the murder rate. (Of course, the primary factor is that the denser the electric poles, the more densely populated the region)).
Transients on HV lines (Score:2)
Re:Transients on HV lines (Score:2)
Re:Transients on HV lines (Score:2)
Do a study. That's what science is about. "Who knows" statements are scare-mongering until backed up with sufficient evidence.
power/voltage/whatever? (Score:2)
Cousin's husband is an epidemiologist (Score:2)
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, th
Re:At the old house (Score:2)
Heh, you want to see power bleeding from the powerlines, check out the transmission lines alongside US 1 in the Florida Keys. (My in-laws have a place down there).
Partly due to the moisture in the air, and the salt buildup on the insulators, and for all I know they're running the lines something above original design voltage to get power to Key West, but if it's quiet you can hear the crackle, and at night you can see 6-inch (at le
Common Sense Check... (Score:2)
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
Re:Common Sense Check... (Score:2)
In other words, when you have a peer-reviewed scientific study to show us, then you may start criticising people for doing something that may or may not be unsafe. Until then, your baseless superstitions are just that: superstitions.
Re:Common Sense Check... (Score:2)
electrical fields EVEN very strong ones dont harm you.
Why is there no change in cancer rates or health problems with high voltage electricians and linesmen who work mere inches for extended periods of time fro mthe wires and therefore are in a field that is 10,000 times stringer than anyone else is in.
why is there no increase in medical problems with people who live near or under power lines? sorry, the govt cant be covering it up too many people live near/under power lines everywhere i
Yeah.... (Score:4, Funny)
Resell Value (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Resell Value (Score:2)
If that sentence makes sense.
I have (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I have (Score:2)
Anyway, growing up I never noticed anything weird. Our radio reception and TV recep
do an experiment (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:do an experiment (Score:2)
Re:do an experiment (Score:2)
Real life induced charge (Score:5, Interesting)
I have also head of people filling a 55 gallon drum with coils of copper wire and stealing power from high-tension wires.
Re:Real life induced charge (Score:5, Interesting)
Very clever - I'd heard of 'clothes lines' but not drums full of coils. If they were burried with just the ends exposed they'd be pretty hard to track down.
So, what kind of electricity do you get out of such a drum? Is it clean enough to run through an inverter onto your home grid? Heh, in a reverse-metered state you could sell it back to the electric company (install a solar panel for cover).
Re:Real life induced charge (Score:2)
Re:Real life induced charge (Score:2)
I work for a power company.
Not only is it illegal and stupid, but if there's a ground anywhere on the line (happens pretty frequently) then there will be a "fault," which means a huge surge of current through the line, which means a huge induced current in your hill-billy (i.e. son of the soil) setup, which means meltdown and other Badness. Just say no.
Electric fence? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Electric fence? (Score:2)
Do the math (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Danger from living near power lines (Score:2)
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.
I've seen nice gardens under them (Score:2)
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 p
Re:I've seen nice gardens under them (Score:2)
I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:2)
Re:I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:2)
Re:I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:2)
Aha!
A couple months after moving into our present place we had a lightning induced surge that tripped all the GFIs, fried a couple of phones and zapped my wife's computer mobo and internal modem. Also the garage door opener.
Around that same time, I noticed a magnetized area on the screen of an old 26" TV monitor that we only occasionally use. I never made the connec
Re:I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you know what happens when a conductor sits in a moving magnetic field? Current. Depending on how close you are, possibly lots of current.
I, personally, have participated over the last year and a half in exper
Re:I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:2)
I'm still somewhat bewildered at the notion that a twisted pair could be induced with enough current so as to induce sufficient voltage to pop the protections inherent to an ethernet cable. Variations in the quality of the twist could explain it, but MAN, would that initial burst of pure magnetic potential have to be HUGE!
Apparently it was, though. The affected TV is chroma-influenced all across its' expanse.
Re:I've had real life EMP experience, though.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Florida Power and Light want to know how bad their lines (and their customers' houses) get damaged by nearby strikes. They've been paying us to find out. It's extraordinarily cool, actually. We launch rockets trailing a w
802.11b (Score:2, Informative)
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 lin
Radio interference from power lines (Score:2, Informative)
My experiences (Score:2)
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 e
Easement and noise (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Easement and noise (Score:2)
Moreso when it's rained. At least, the power lines behind our old house did.
Quite annoying.
Re:Easement and noise (Score:2)
no they wont.
if you build on an easement and they need to destroy something to use it... your fault for building where you were not supposed to.
been there, dont that.. they drove the bulldozer over a freinds fence and destroyed his pond,sprinkler system and grass.. when confronted, he was handed a paper with legal information and the power companies lawyers info that basicall
Re:Easement and noise (Score:2)
The noise thing is VERY IMPORTANT. Here's why:
Right now there's a powerline in NW WA state that used to carry 230kV. It was rated for 500kV, and the transmission company had an easement for 500kV. For years they ran it at a lower voltage, because they could. Now they have some congestion issues, so they bumped up the voltage to 500kV. Bam, "lots" of powerline noise. It's the same amount of noise as any 500kV line, but the people nearby moved in while it was being run at 230kV, so they think that t
Life examples (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Life "examples" (Score:3, Insightful)
Eat meat?
Excercise?
How's your family history of this?
-1, FUD
Re:Life examples (Score:2)
I do know the science, and I also know the following:
My parents, sister, and myself have never lived near any high voltage wires. My father died of liver cancer, my mother is recovering from breast cancer, and my sister has had severe arthritis since the age of 35. Oh, and I have a benign lump on my thumb.
Maybe that whole "coincidence" thing has more to it than you know.
Or it could have something to do with other lifestyle habits -- I'm sure my father's smoking two packs a day didn't
Re:Life examples (Score:2)
Maybe that whole "coincidence" thing has more to it than you know.
Let's not forget that things like this can often run in families, too.
Re:Life examples (Score:2)
Bob in St. Louis, Missouri, forwarded this mail to sixteen friends. Five days later he won sixty million dollars in the lottery.
My dad used to do this all day (Score:2)
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 p
from the free electricity dept... (Score:2, Interesting)
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 l
Not only that...... (Score:2)
EMF & Cancer (Score:2)
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.
debunked (Score:2)
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
Two things... (Score:2)
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.
Living near high output sources (Score:2)
It's all fine and dandy until you discharge static (Score:2)
Staistics (Score:2)
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
Re:choose life :) (Score:2)
"In the former Soviet Union, power lines kill YOU!"
Re:Sad news- entrepeneur Bill Gates dead at 48 (Score:2)
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Re:Not Kites. (Score:2)