Technical > Home Improvement > Electric Corridors and Health

Electric Corridors and Health

if the arc jumps to you, it'll kill you, you'd need to climb the tower or the wire would have to fall close to you for that to happen, otherwise, it's perfectly safe. no other health effects. the frequency is way too low. 50 or 60 hertz.

reply to markf
We had high-power lines across the street from my house growing up, the local soccer / basketball fields were right under them. So was my middle school. No adverse side-effects. Now if they played around the tower, that's a different story, but just being under them isn't going to harm you.

reply to markf
I read in an IEEE journal that there has been some correlation between HV lines and health issues. Something about the ionization around the insulators reacting with pollution in the air and rain to produce carcinogens in the ground underneath.

Could never be proven except that in some areas the results were found. Probably, if there is HV lines. there is probably also all kind of other industrial stuff that can't be disproven as a cause.

Don't worry about EMF

I'd worry more about resale value.
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Scott Henion

Embedded Systems Consultant,
SHDesigns home - DIY Welder

reply to markf
there have been some reports over the years of clusters of cancer and other odd health concerns that seem to be clustered around HV transmission lines think 1MV+ however there was nothing proven conclusively. the math is something to the effect of the high energy fields generated drop proportionally the greater the distance from the source. so basically to get close enough for negative effects you basically have to be within a few feet of the lines themselves and at that distance i would be more concerned with creating a path to ground than EMF or anything like it.
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reply to markf
EMF strength for point sources (e.g. an appliance) is 1/r^2, and for linear sources (power lines) it's 1/r.

As far as health concerns, you aren't going to get any definitive answer one way or another, especially here. You will have people that insist that it causes every malady from ingrown toenails to cancer, and you'll have people that insist it is 100% safe. And unfortunately, there's medical and scientific evidence that supports but does not prove any and all of the above.

Personally, I wouldn't live under HV power lines, but more for aesthetic reasons, not health concerns. Plus, the higher the voltage/current, the larger the setback from the lines. I don't think I've ever seen very high voltage lines that run through residential neighborhoods.

Actually for a true "point source" it is 1/r^3 , for a linear source it is 1/r^2 and for a planar source it is 1/r, if I recall my (least) most favorite class of 45 years ago.
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The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

reply to markf
Just down the road from us there is a pretty large HV line, the towers are about 150 feet tall. Just recently someone bought the parcel at the top left corner of this intersection and built a really nice house next to the other newer home. Unlike the other house which faces east, the new house faces south directly at the HV lines. The driveway comes down and lines up with that giant tower that is just across the street. When they go to sell I bet they take a big hit because of those lines. The worst part is they could have really minimized the look of the lines, by just facing the house east instead of south.

The majority of the windows are on the front and back of the house. The front all you see is that HV tower , the back all you see is the neighbor's house. If they spun the house, then the front and back would have a view of nothing but fields with the H/V lines running off at the side of your view.

Yeah, if the house faced the road then the back yard view could be improved with some good tall blue spruces or other shielding. Now the view out the front window is crap.

reply to markf
Check
CDC - EMF (Electric and Magnetic Fields) - NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Topic page here

One interesting article that caught my eye from an occupational risk perspective. »www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/96-129/
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reply to markf
When I was a kid, one of the schools I attended had these lines running through the parking lot and part of the athletic fields (out past the end zone). Generations of children attended that school, with no negative effects that I'm aware of.

There were a couple of interesting phenomena, though:

1. On rainy or really humid days, the lines would crackle incessantly (they always hummed a bit). Kind of freaky to hear if you weren't used to it, but it was something that you quickly became accustomed to.

2. Under the right conditions, cars parked under or even near the lines would develop a kind of "static electricity" feel to them, due to an induced electrical current. This was erratic, though, where one person might feel it but the next one might not (it may have depended a lot on what kind of shoes they were wearing and so on) and required a gentle, back-of-the-fingers touch against the metal in order to feel it. It was a very weird sensation if you didn't know to expect it. As far as I know, though, there were no real negative consequences to this - for the people or the cars.

reply to markf

reply to boogi man

reply to markf
Live in Niagara Falls here; grew up next to high voltage lines, and both houses I've lived in as an adult have been corridor-adjacent. No health issues to worry about next to the lines.

Who owns the corridor? Check with the neighbours to see how they maintain it. That has been my only concern -- the prior house I was next to a Hydro One corridor, and they were great at proactively maintaining their property (cutting grass, trimming trees, removing garbage, etc.). Now I live next to a Canadian Niagara Power corridor and they are only reactive - you have to complain to have them maintain their property, and it takes forever to get action.

reply to markf
My only concern living close to high power lines would be the potential for radio interference when receiving weaker signals.

However if you're not into radio type stuff then I guess that doesn't really matter.