Living near pylons

rc856

Hi folks,

Do any of you live near the main 400,000 v national grid pylons?
Found a great house in the country that has pylons/cables about 100m away but we're a bit put off even though any possible health risk is a bit inconclusive.
The good old internet sometimes doesn't help :? While I don't expect anyone to have any 100% answers, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has been in a similar position and as to what research they might have done or from anyone that works in electricity/EMF/oncology etc.

I'm telling myself that by thinking about it this much, I'm undecided enough to be put off but wonder if it's unfounded.
The folk who live in the 4 houses on site obviously weren't concerned about it.

Thoughts welcome

Cheers

sungod

^^^this

plus all the people living near high power underground cables, and other domestic/urban cabling and devices, it all radiates the same em fields, yet there doesn't seem to be mayhem along the gridlines or among the closest people to the fridge

just don't go waving long pointy sticks or flying kites in the garden

metronome

Reminds me of an art installation from a few years ago. Hundreds of tube-lights were pushed in to the ground underneath HV power lines. Made for quite a display at night.

Who knows if living near underneath them is detrimental to health... On the plus side however, you can play star wars every night.

wongataa

As far as I am aware there has never been a proper study that has found increased rates of cancer etc from living near powerlines.

The only possible issues really are the way they look and that they will buzz when the weather is right (damp).

capt_slog

I'd think that you'd get more inductive influence on your body by sitting in front of a CRT computer monitor, and we've all stacked up a lot of that, seemingly without ill effects (other than a tendency to delve into Bottom Bracket and talk bollox).

I've heard about people taking fluorescent tubes with them when the go night fishing and are near to pylons. It's technically illegal by the way, I believe it's called something like 'theft by induction'.

airbag

I've seen "power line vs. cancer" stories pop up quite often - in classes about statistical fallacies. Other than that...

(on a slightly more serious note, try reading something like Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, or even taking classes on stats. I'm not saying no good evidence about a link exists - I haven't seen any but I haven't really looked - but I suspect you'd be more comfortable being better able to distinguish good evidence from bad. You'll also probably be a lot more smug).

VTech

I lived around 100m from a huge pylon in my 20's, it was our first family home and I turned out perfect

(seriously though, I did and ive never really been that ill).

daviesee

VTech wrote:

I lived around 100m from a huge pylon in my 20's, it was our first family home and I turned out perfect

(seriously though, I did and ive never really been that ill).

Nicely set up.

Rob Somerset

The electric field is very small at 100m. If it were me this would be the minimum distance I would live from one, though I would have no problem at all at more than 200m. Less than 50m - no way!

zingaiya

When I spent a year living with my grandparents as a kid, they had a leg* of a pylon in their back garden.

The only problem was the buzzing noise when it was damp.

spen666

I personally wouldn't choose to live there

rc856

There were results from a survey in 2006 that been over a number of years and lots of kids.
Results being that those living within 200m from birth were 70% more likely to develop child cancers than those at 600m.
But, I guess they are just stats. There has to be a result. I'm more likely to get run over living near a motorway than someone who isn't . Doesn't mean it will happen, just 'more likely'.
Thing is, when it's my 5yr old....any 'chance' makes you apprehensive!

Another problem is that there isn't anything official saying 'don't worry/100% safe'!

Spen666...that's the answer a lot of friends will give...not based on any facts, just because! :?

spen666

RC856 wrote:

...

Spen666...that's the answer a lot of friends will give...not based on any facts, just because! :?

I personally wouldn't do it. I have satisfied myself it is not something I want to do.

I am happy to make that decision for myself on the information I have available to me.

I am not suggesting that you should follow my decision. That is a matter entirely for you to decide upon.




On a side note:
The lack of hard empirical evidence that something is harmful does not mean it is not harmful. It simply means there is at present no evidence it is harmful

daviesee

Its nigh on impossible to prove that something doesnt exist.
The onus is on those to prove that a risk does exist.
If you have that evidence then you can make a decision.

rc856

spen666 wrote:

I am happy to make that decision for myself on the information I have available to me.


On a side note:
The lack of hard empirical evidence that something is harmful does not mean it is not harmful. It simply means there is at present no evidence it is harmful

That was my main reason for posting.....to see what other info people might have found. I've gone as far as Google searches which seems to churn out the same stuff.

spen666

daviesee wrote:

Its nigh on impossible to prove that something doesnt exist.
The onus is on those to prove that a risk does exist.
If you have that evidence then you can make a decision.

There is no onus on anyone to prove anything.

You are happy to take the risk - then go ahead
You are not happy to take the risk then don't go ahead

Its a personal choice


IF you want to stop someone doing something, then and only then does there become any need to prove anything. No one here is trying to stop the OP moving to the house.

schweiz

IIRC from my Physics lessons then the magnitude of electrical field strength (V/m) follows an inverse square law. i.e. it decreases at a rate of the square of the distance from it. Therefore if the house is at a distance of 100m the field strength is 10,000 times weaker than beneath the cables.

I lived for the first 18 years of my life less than 100m from some power cables. I don't know what voltage they were carrying but they were lattice pylons rather than just poles. I barely even noticed them, and it was only walking within about 20m of the pylon on my way home from school that I could hear any buzzing if the humidity was high. In fact I was more worried about walking home through a deserted cemetery on a winters night rather than the buzzing pylon!

daviesee

spen666 wrote:

There is no onus on anyone to prove anything.

You are happy to take the risk - then go ahead
You are not happy to take the risk then don't go ahead

Its a personal choice


IF you want to stop someone doing something, then and only then does there become any need to prove anything. No one here is trying to stop the OP moving to the house.

I am not arguing with anyone about anything, simply pointing out that proving something doesn't exist (risk in this case) is hard to prove. The OP can only search for studies which show a risk does exist, which he is saying is hard to come by.

estampida

err there is little or no risk

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a symptom of people that do not understand the real world and have mental health problems and used this as an excuse not to conform or integrate.

For the normal sorts compared to the energy the big bang released (that includes all static and white noise you can pick up with electronic gear or even the r/f of the planet which is caused by lightning) there is little or no risk to your health.

quite frankly even if it did impact on your health, the better quality air and lifestyle in the sticks would counter act this (assuming you make it to retirement age).

or you could always wrap tinfoil around your head..........

upperoilcan

spen666 wrote:

I personally wouldn't choose to live there

+1...

ben@31

I suppose you can never avoid electromagnetism. With mobile phones, WIFI, radio and television. It's all around you more than ever now.

I suppose there is more of a health risk from holding a mobile phone next to your head than standing 100 metres away from a pylon.

riche0

Hi I work as a Biochemist in healthcare.

There is evidence that shows childhood leukaemia is raised within 50m of living to an overhead high voltage power line.

If you are looking for sound accurate information look at pier reviewed scientific journals not general websites. For example;

http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7503/1290

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v108/ ... 3128a.html

dw300

I slept 10 feet / 3m from a street level transformer for about 12 years. What are they, about 20k - 40k volts? Using the inverse square law that's probably a much bigger dose of EM than 100m from 400k volts. It didnt really do anything bad for my health.

Guanajuato

riche0 wrote:

Hi I work as a Biochemist in healthcare.

There is evidence that shows childhood leukaemia is raised within 50m of living to an overhead high voltage power line.

If you are looking for sound accurate information look at pier reviewed scientific journals not general websites. For example;

http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7503/1290

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v108/ ... 3128a.html

There is no accepted biological mechanism to explain the epidemiological results; indeed, the relation may be due to chance or confounding.

In English, even the research to try and prove a link is inconclusive and it shows correlation, rather than causation. There are likely other factors at play, such as houses close to power lines (generally) being cheaper (partly because of the fear of elastic trickery, instilled by the media), and therefore the children there are more likely to have issues related to (relative) deprivation.

What about all the babies born in hospitals? Do they have an increased incidence of leuakemia? You'd think, being born so close to extremely high voltage equipment would have some bearing if there really was a causative link.

Just wear tin foil underwear and you'll be fine.

sadlybiggins

I've no idea of the dangers or otherwise of living near pylons, but one thing to consider is whether you'd find it difficult to sell the house if/when you want to move. Whether that's a problem depends on whether you're planning to stay long-term. As the thread shows, some people would be relaxed whereas others would rule it out immediately.

redjeepǃ

Guanajuato wrote:

riche0 wrote:

Hi I work as a Biochemist in healthcare.

There is evidence that shows childhood leukaemia is raised within 50m of living to an overhead high voltage power line.

If you are looking for sound accurate information look at pier reviewed scientific journals not general websites. For example;

http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7503/1290

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v108/ ... 3128a.html

There is no accepted biological mechanism to explain the epidemiological results; indeed, the relation may be due to chance or confounding.

In English, even the research to try and prove a link is inconclusive and it shows correlation, rather than causation. There are likely other factors at play, such as houses close to power lines (generally) being cheaper (partly because of the fear of elastic trickery, instilled by the media), and therefore the children there are more likely to have issues related to (relative) deprivation.

What about all the babies born in hospitals? Do they have an increased incidence of leuakemia? You'd think, being born so close to extremely high voltage equipment would have some bearing if there really was a causative link.

Just wear tin foil underwear and you'll be fine.

So it seems it's all down to whether or not you want you kids to grow up in an area of relative deprivation.

I don't know whether or not there's any effect, but I know that unless there's a considerable difference in house prices I wouldn't consider it as a) I'd always have it in the back of mind and b) I'd be worried that it will always be harder to sell the house.

To be honest, I'm amazed at some of the unscientific arguments being put forward in this thread as suggested evidence that it doesn't cause a problem and the amount of mockery from the people who don't believe it does. The truth is that there's no conclusive proof either way, so make up your own mind where you want your family to live.

rc856

Thanks for the replies/links

RDW

Note also that pylons were shown to be 'evil and wicked and dangerous' back in 1975:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_0Je5A7I64&t=41s