Pylon advice please - wooden pylon voltage advice

[ferg]

I'd be happy enough living near pylons with young kids.

Really the evidence points towards no link.

As Lucien has said most of what you read online will be utter bollox.

The actual scientific peer reviwed studies point at no link.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

The physiological effect of being worried about a perceived risk, real or invented, could be more harmful than the risk itself. The only way to avoid that is to get solid data and put your trust in it to the point that you are quite satisfied that the risk is negligible. That is a matter of your own confidence in the accuracy, and relevance to your situation, of the study results you read.

 

[dmxtothemax]

I would not be worried at all about 33Kv.
We have already lived for hundreds of years with them.
Get on with your life and worry about putting food on the table.

 

[davesparks]

Some people seem to create quite a fuss about the overhead lines, but nobody seems to worry about the stuff underground like cables, ancient leaky sewers, lead water pipes etc etc

 

[davesparks]

I don't have an electrical background and I am completely new to all this. It's really difficult for me to even understand the papers I have read which talk about safe distances depending on voltage etc. Even from the bits I've read there's lots of conflicting information. Much of it talks about the field to fall value and a unit of measurement (micro tesla) and suggests that for a 33kv the distance in metres for the field to fall value at 0-20 metres is 0.4 micro teslas. Some of the things I've read suggest 0.3 to 0.4 is associated with an increased risk of these health problems (particularly childhood leukaemia). The house is 18 metres away. The same table also suggests that for 10-40 metres it can be as low as 0.1 micro teslas though. There is a company I've found that say they can measure the actual level so I'm thinking of getting them to do this for peace of mind. I'm just very confused unfortunately.

Compare that to the earths natural magnetic field, which a quick google search suggests can range from 25 to 65 microtesla at the earths surface. It kind of makes the 0.4 microtesla field look like far less of a problem.

 

[marconi]

The interpretation of the dubious scare-science has already been nicely covered; my tuppeny-worth advice is that if you are worried about the pylons then so might others be come the day you might want to sell up which would detract from the perceived value of your property, making it harder to sell or sell for less than its truer value. Before you buy it you have a choice so consider the investment risk carefully before deciding to buy it and factor it in.

If you cannot see yourself ever stopping worrying about the pylons then Westward 10 (at #12) is spot in my view. And, since you declare finding it difficult to understand the sciences then you may not be readily convinced by scientific arguments about the safety of being in proximity to them and remain a sceptic.

My mother-in-law is such a sceptic and is convinced they (alternating electro-magnetic fields) cause harm and I am resigned to the fact nothing anyone or I says will alter her view: she cannot explain how and why they are harmful and is biased in citing reports to support her, believing instead that the electricity industry is colluding to hide something. When I first started going out with my wife, I found that in her mother's home, each appliance and wiring accessory had affixed to it a match-box sized piece of paper with the circuit diagram of 'T' or 'Pi' filter network (see https: LC Low Pass Filter Circuit :: Radio-Electronics.Com - http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/rf-technology-design/rf-filters/simple-lc-lowpass-filter-design.php). I humour her to this day.

 

[mhar]

I would be more worried about that dark cloud in photo 2

 

[static zap]

Is the research USA based ,as quite a few food additives banned over here that they use due to cost advantage , fast developing young vulnerable in many ways .
Plenty of fresh air looks like a bonus ! (No transformer could be a bonus)

 

[buzzlightyear]

Can anyone tell me what type of pylon especially the voltage a wooden pole is near a house we are buying please? I can't find an answer online. Photos attached hopefully, thanks in advance

yeah, it is 33 k/v washing line, are you think to use it !

 

[Marvo]

I personally wouldn't be worried about it, 18 meters is a reasonable distance.

Power lines and more recently cell phone towers are hot topics with the conspiracy theorists who've flooded the internet with their psudo-science but by far the majority of real, peer reviewed scientific evidence from studies that have been done over many decades shows no link between power line proximity and incidences of cancer.

 

[HandySparks]

...so I've been worried sick about it.

Do you use a mobile phone? The field strength, at your skin, of a mobile phone held to your ear may well be more than anything else you're likely to be exposed to. I take part in a long term study into the effects of mobile use on health. I've agreed that they can get my phone use data from the network operator and I get contacted every few years to answer a few simple questions about the way that I use the phone and my current health.

 

[Rpa07]

Certainly no kite flying in your back yard!
Good advice from all the members.
You've probably already got the answer in your head.
All that outside air and running in the fields, growing your own veg and planting some fruit trees - if there is a bus stop outside, job done!
All the best with your decision.

 

[Emma Owen]

Please take great care when researching this. There is a lot of pseudoscience and sensationalist reporting on this subject, especially online, but few relevant scientific studies that are likely to reflect your situation. It is a sad fact that the loudest voices are often charlatans, claiming this or that about electromagnetic fields and misquoting or quoting valid information out of context, in order to scare people into buying their supposed solutions for the claimed harmful effects of EMFs. I once did a review (many years ago!) of material available to the lay reader on this subject and found that demonstrably misinformational articles outnumbered potentially valid ones by about 15 to 1.

If you have concerns, by all means investigate peer-reviewed academic studies, there are both lab and epidemiological studies, but be aware that small differences in parameters such as distance from the line can change a significant finding into an insignificant one, etc.

Please could you tell me which peer reviewed academic studies I can read? It seems to be 11kv according to the national grid advisor I spoke with today who was very helpful. I'm keen to read from reliable sources and appreciate much of what is reported is not evidence based

 

[Marvo]

The problems you're going to have in diving into academic studies are firstly they're nearly all locked behind paywalls and not readily available for general consumption. Secondly they're written in such a way that they're not going to may much sense to anyone that's not at graduate level in that particular field.

I've attached a quasi-experimental field study to give you some idea whgat you're up against. If you really want to persue raw study material then I'd suggest you start trawling sites like LibGen.io and Sci-Hub or even booksee.org, booksc.org and bookzz.org but you'll probably need a VPN (VPN is safer than a mirror or proxy) because I think ISP's in the UK have these sites blacklisted and blocked due to copyright violations.

 

[Santa]

Would the OP hear any hum from those lines?