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EMF 'dirty electricity' experience?

James Rayner
Evening folks. A little bit of a strange scenario I have come across that I haven't had a great deal of previous experience with other than the odd googling and conspiracy theories, here goes.

I was contacted by a customer to investigate 'dirty electricity' at a property they intend to move into, the property is a late 60's bungalow which has been rewired sometime in the late 90's. Empty with any white goods unplugged even the door bell has been isolated. His wife suffers from EMF hypersensitivity ( I had to Google it too), he has showed me a little handheld meter he has that from chest height upwards towards the ceiling throughout the house reads at its maximum range EMF of 200v/m. The uT (micro Tesla) doesn't register either at all or on the lowest indicator. 0.2uT.

I have had a look in the loft and all the wiring is sat under insulation touching the ceiling and drops to switches and sockets, my understanding is that all electrical transmission cables emit a magnetic field. And the v/m shouldn't cause an issue unless your reading over 9kv/m. If the uT was high it would indicate a possible breakdown of the insulation or a bad appliance causing harmonics.

When you isolate the supply the reading as expected drops to 0v/m.

My theory is his EMF meter is purely detecting a live cable (almost like a cable finder) his wife says she gets a head ache when she spends any amount of time in the property. Now I'm not sure if the readout on her meter showing red is making her think she has a head ache or not.

Any of you guru's ever had a similar situation and where the hell do I go next.

Oh I should also add I had my logger installed for a week and nothing untoward shows up. I ran a IEEE 519 report with the data which is harmonics in electric power systems and it passed all the requirements.

Apologies for the long post on a Friday night and thank you if you're still reading.

Im still learning more and more in this vast industry and would appreciate any experiences you can share.

James
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    Did it make much difference if you walked the meter around the bungalow?


    Also, after you isolated the supply and the meter reading dropped to 0v/m did you try bringing on the various circuits one by one to see if the cause is from one circuit, or distributed across all circuits?


    I am thinking along the lines that a T&E cable under power would have both an energised Live plus Neutral (and Earth) and thus not radiate, but if for some reason there is, in a worse case scenario, a singe core cable connected as Live, then this may be the cause? 

    (A couple of years ago was working on a house that we were planning to rent out and found a coil of about 10 meter of 2.5 T&E under the floorboards at the top of the stairs. The cores had been individually taped over.  Looking in the consumer unit, there was the other end of the cable, again with the cores neatly taped. Something had obviously been planned in the past, but what? The house had been rewired about 20 years previously.)

    Clive
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    Thanks for your reply Clive, It didnt make much difference walking around, When in the loft it reads higher at your feet which is very close to the cabling, it doesnt really drop when your right in the corners of the rooms where there is no cabling in the ceilings. so its picking up the m/v from at least 1 meter away.

    I did try to find if it was a single circuit causing the readings but it is purely cumulative, no single circuit has a sudden increase. 


    If i cannot explain the cause of the radiation I may suggest installing containment over the essential circuits and install a demand switch to effectively isolate the house when they dont require power. Their current house has no WiFi, mobile phones Televisions etc. They switch off the power at night so she can have a peaceful nights sleep?!? It's beyond me ...
  • 0
    "his wife says she gets a head ache when she spends any amount of time in the property. Now I'm not sure if the readout on her meter showing red is making her think she has a head ache or not."

    Yes well.... There was once a story about light bulbs and TVs exploding along a path of a microwave link between somewhere in hereford and Malvern.

    I have always thought there was some electromagnetic influence when in close proximity to high magnetic fields caused by high voltage lines, but then ask any of the 'gurus' on this forum and they will tell you that there is no evidence to suggest harmful effects from electromagnetic radiation.

    My suggestion would be to sleep in a Faradays cage. It could be easily created by wall papering aluminium foil on the bedroom walls. You could then experiement by attaching the aluminium foil to various voltages and frequencies to see how the sleepers reacted.....

    Legh
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    We’re all living in a soup of strong electromagnetic radiation 24/7, from long wave to micro wave and everything in between, I can’t believe if you removed all the house wiring it would make any difference.  I suspect it is mostly in the mind.
  • 0
    I have isolated the power to the property and that solves the high readings they are recording.  EMF hypersenstivity is a real thing, apparently..
  • 0
    Legh Richardson:
    "his wife says she gets a head ache when she spends any amount of time in the property. Now I'm not sure if the readout on her meter showing red is making her think she has a head ache or not."

    Yes well.... There was once a story about light bulbs and TVs exploding along a path of a microwave link between somewhere in hereford and Malvern.

    I have always thought there was some electromagnetic influence when in close proximity to high magnetic fields caused by high voltage lines, but then ask any of the 'gurus' on this forum and they will tell you that there is no evidence to suggest harmful effects from electromagnetic radiation.

    My suggestion would be to sleep in a Faradays cage. It could be easily created by wall papering aluminium foil on the bedroom walls. You could then experiement by attaching the aluminium foil to various voltages and frequencies to see how the sleepers reacted.....

    Legh


    You can purchase grounding mats that you sleep on and they plug into the socket outlet.. I cannot recommend that would be a great idea, given that the number of O-pen conductor faults are on the rise. 


  • 0
    "We’re all living in a soup of strong electromagnetic radiation 24/7, from long wave to micro wave and everything in between, I can’t believe if you removed all the house wiring it would make any difference.  I suspect it is mostly in the mind."


    Yes, I think they call it headaches. Not convinced that its purely psychosymatic.....EMF hypersensitivity for some people may be true.

    "You can purchase grounding mats that you sleep on and they plug into the socket outlet.. I cannot recommend that would be a great idea, given that the number of O-pen conductor faults are on the rise." 


    Yes well TNS systems have gone or being replaced by live/earthed neturals. That seems to indicate that both copper thieves, poor neutral design and possible installation/maintenance workmanship are responsible.

    Legh

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