..and have you died yet?
My niece is looking at the perfect house but it has a pylon out front.
A quick search says that you will get cancer…or you’ll be absolutely fine.
Any real life experiences?

..and have you died yet?

selection bias…

How close is the pylon, and what voltage? We lived with a 400KV one in my field (about 150 yards) for 30-odd years, and I’m fine…fine…fine…Aaaaaaaaagh!
(I’m sure the degeneration is all age-related!)

So I live in a house that was originally built as an employees house at a SSE Hydro Electric power station. The grid connection is only 11kV – the generator is only a couple of MW. The power cable runs under my front garden and up onto a pole by my septic tank. I lie on top of the cable in the summer on a big bean bag with a G&T. I’ll get back to you if I fall ill.

Frankly I’m more worried about a whole host of other health risks and suggest you stop looking at the internet and focus on peer reviewed scientific research. If the grid causes cancer we’re all dead.

Best mate does. he’s still alive.
His view is phenomenal, the power lines arcing across the landscape actually add to it imho.
I’ve noticed a pop and crackle in the air in some weather conditions, but i got used to it pretty quickly.
Wouldn’t stop me living where he does, it’s a wonderful place to be.

Free electricity if she sets up an induction loop.

I do.

Not died yet.

I plan to one day.

I’m fairly certain it won’t be the pylons fault …. But it’ll probably be recorded as such…..if the loonies get in charge.

Yep, proper cross country line, no issues generally. Good for predicting rain, the crackle a lot. Occasionally get (static) shocks if directly under them. Biggest issue is they are pig ugly, rather have another 20 wind turbines.

We’re surround by em radiation everyday.

This man did

How close? If close and impacting on view it would put me off and I’d be worried others too when comes to selling down the line. More so than health issues.
That said do they not hum n buzz a fair bit? Hmmmm.

My niece is looking at the perfect house but it has a pylon out front.

Depends on your niece really.  I really don’t think  you get cancer as people used to use electric fields to heal you (and I’m not sure that worked either).  However if your niece is concerned then it really isn’t worth it as the damage from the stress is more that she will ever get from electric fields

Lived about 100 yards from one as a kid, so about 16 years. Parents still living there now, total 45 years. Not in great health, but think that’s more likely to be age related and probably their upbringing. Very poor inner city childhoods (Belfast and Liverpool).
My health is absolutely fine.

Pointless thread! If someone comes along and says that they lived near a pylon and got cancer what conclusion are you going to draw from it ?

I live near one, I thought I was going to see a paraglider die one day, he survived!

No, but but I think the buzzing would drive me nuts.

The bidding is horrible imo.

Oh and Havana syndrome might be an issue.😉

With regards to health there seems to be sod all decent evidence for the claims it is bad.
However when I use to commute into work I use to go under a powerline and in wet weather it wasnt overly pleasant on the ears. So I would be cautious about it from that perspective.

I’d be more worried about WiFi and mobile reception.

They buzz a bit. Next question?

The planet is utterly flooded with EM radiation. If she’s concerned about a pylon then your niece is gonna shit herself when she realises how radios / mobile phones / magnets / X-rays / TV remotes / Wi-Fi / the sun works.

I lived directly under a power line… for a few days at Glastonbury festival in the late 90s. I think. Two years running.

I seem to recall being very unfocussed for a lot of the time, laughing a lot at things that probably weren’t that funny on reflection, and eating quite a lot of unhealthy food…

Also, be careful with metal tent poles.

Any access issues?

I lived directly under one and when they were maintaining it the technician dropped a wrench from the very top, it came through our roof and hit me directly mid forehead killing me instantly.

The risk doesn’t seem to be significant but the science isn’t “done”. It was often child hood leukaemia that was the main concern and a recent pooled study found there was a small increase in proximity to power lines but apparently not due to magnetic fields from the lines.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-018-0097-7

Would I buy a house under power lines? I wouldn’t rule it out for that reason but it’s not as simple as saying there’s no risk.

They can suffer Corona discharge, given the pandemic, you can make up your own mind*. 😉

*There’s no need to make up your own mind. The only thing the two have in common is they have a roughly crown shaped nature to them.

Does she have a kite?

I spent 42 years in the electricity distribution industry, this entailed working around or sometimes with live equipment up to 132,000 volts. This has caused no issues to me or any colleagues. The companies that run these businesses are extremely safety focussed and electromagnetic radiation has never been of any concern so, from this respect I don’t think there are any issues. One thing to consider is that the maintenance on our electrical infrastructure isn’t done as well as it once was thanks to privatisation so bits do fall off towers on occasion these days, especially if you’re near the sea!
As long as it isn’t directly over the property and it isn’t too much of an eyesore then I’d say don’t worry about it.

I couldn’t do it – the noise would drive me insane.

Regularly park under the lines in Chopwell. They’re >400KV ones, and they induce a hell of a charge in anything metal – taking the bike off of the car roof can be interesting, and as above there is a canny bit of noise (especially when humid).

Guess it depends on the distance and the voltage.

No, but but I think the buzzing would drive me nuts.

Thats quite a height to climb to get your thrills.

An interesting documentary here 😀

If the noise from the lines at Choppers is anything to go by it’d drive me up the wall.

I’d be more worried about WiFi and mobile reception.

50Hz vs 5000000000Hz unlikely to present issues.

I wouldn’t be worried by EMF issues, but having a big pile of scrap iron in the front yard would irritate me and the buzzing and crackling in the wet would drive me potty.

(I ride Wharncliffe, which has transmission lines going through it, and on a wet day they make a hell of a racket)

Tip: don’t set fire to it.

What @cougar said.

A bit of buzzing to be heard if you are close enough.

But for some teatime reading there is some fun to be had in pubmed
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32293005/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32278161/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31226625/

And so on. Here’s some seasoning for the correlations https://jclogs.wordpress.com/2021/07/26/art-of-statistics-by-david-spiegelhalter-chapter-4-what-causes-what/

The risk doesn’t seem to be significant but the science isn’t “done”. It was often child hood leukaemia that was the main concern and a recent pooled study found there was a small increase in proximity to power lines but apparently not due to magnetic fields from the lines.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-018-0097-7

Would I buy a house under power lines? I wouldn’t rule it out for that reason but it’s not as simple as saying there’s no risk.

This is a good point. Possible v small risk (but no plausible biological mechanism identified, correlation vs causation incredibly hard to prove). What’s interesting is that if there is causation here, it would account for 2-5 cases nationally per year. Most (90%) childhood leukaemia is curable, too. Vs hundreds of childhood pedestrian deaths on the roads each year:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/324018/pedestrians-killed-or-injured-in-road-accidents-in-great-britain/

Based on that, I’d be far more concerned about living near a busy road – both for reasons of accidents but also air pollution. Or a river that might flood etc. But I also wouldn’t want to live near a Pylon, they’re an eyesore and are noisy. Obviously a lot of people don’t have that luxury of choice.

i used to know someone who had lines over their street. They had an unusually high cases of lukemia on that street.

I wouldnnt, access and noise would put me off and did do when i looked at a house with one in the back garden.

Based on that, I’d be far more concerned about living near a busy road. Or a river that might flood etc. But I also wouldn’t want to live near a Pylon, they’re an eyesore and are noisy. Obviously a lot of people don’t have that luxury of choice.

That’s exactly my feeling on it – you could have a lot worse neighbours. Instrial areas, a car paint shop, old landfill, pub, takeaway, airport, busy road, train line etc. Or just the fact that maybe you can get a nice 3 bed house under a pylon which gives your kids a better place to stay vs a 2 bed not near a pylon. Just one thing to factor in.

I wouldn’t be worried about health, but I would be bothered by the unsightly lump of metal on the front garden and as others have said the noise can be pretty awful. One of our dog walking routes goes past/under powerlines and the noise from them when it’s misty/drizzly is incredible.

If she’s not bothered about the pylon itself, tell her to go and sit under/near one during different weather to see if the noise will bother her.

The companies that run these businesses are extremely safety focussed and electromagnetic radiation has never been of any concern so, from this respect I don’t think there are any issues.

That’s not necessarily the same thing though. When the pylon is over your house you might be exposed to it far more than you are as a worker. You’re also not a developing child, presumably.

Based on that, I’d be far more concerned about living near a busy road

Well one of the things mentioned in that meta-study above is that pylons are often co-located with other bad things like busy roads.

Not really relevant but 20+ years ago I worked somewhere that had a DEC VAX computer, it would crash every few weeks so we’d logged a call for DEC to do some analysis. After a couple of weeks their explanation was they thought it was likely some cows in a nearby field rubbing against an electricity pylon causing an increase in alpha particles within the computer which was crashing the CPU. I still remember that conference call and us wondering if it was a wind-up or if they were being serious…