Electromagnetic Interference from Minisplit System
Dirty electric from minisplit ductless heat and air conditioning
I saw a u tube video on a Fujitsu mini split system air/heat…where a building biologist specialist was testing a persons house for dirty energy. He found from the box on the outside of the house had very high amount of electro magnetic interference… and determined that it came from a Fujitsu Mini Split system… he used filters to try to eliminate the energy…which worked for everything but the Fujitsu System. He said the spikes were the same type that causes occular melanoma cancer. – 20 killohertz I was just going to purchase a mini split system for my home…but now I’m not sure. Is there any filter that strong enough to eliminate these type of spikes…….. I have not been able to find any more info on this subject….for any other brands of Mini Splits
the above is the link I saw this info on. From Windheim EMF Solutions
I’M TRYING TO FIND OUT IF THERE IS ANY FILTER THAT WOULD ELIMINATE THIS BAD ENERGY IN MY HOUSE……OR…ARE THERE OTHER Mini split units that dont cause this…
I have not been able to find out this information on line.
I would appreciate your help.
Thank you
Arleen D’Vachio
[email protected]
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More scaremongering about low & medium frequency EMF isn't doing the world any favors. The filter that's really needed is a better information filter. The credentials and credibility of somebody with the title "building biologist specialist " need to be taken with heaping helpings of skepticism.
Despite decades of scrutiny the links to adverse health effects at the emissions levels found in homes is speculative at best. If you're concerned about 20kHz emissions from an inverter mini-split maybe it's time to stop using computers & cell phones/phone chargers too and stop watching TV, since the power supplies in these devices also emit EMF in the few 10s of kHz range, and unlike the compressor unit on a mini-split, they are much closer to you. (The 27kHz ballasts in the fluorescent fixtures in my office sometimes interfere with taking accurate measurements in our electronics lab, but are NOT a health concern.)
The topic comes up from time to time on this site, eg:
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/emfs-and-human-health
Arleen,
The video blurb refers to something called "biologically toxic dirty electricity (DE)." Suffice it to say that this phrase has no recognized meaning to any reputable biologist. This is a scam.
For science-based information on electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and human health, see this article: EMFs and Human Health.
[Later edit: Once again, Dana and I were typing simultaneously -- and Dana beat me to the punch.]
Arleen,
These are not the words of a researcher or scientist -- these are the words of a deranged poet grasping for metaphors (a poet, by the way, seeking to spread fear and anxiety):
“The 20 kilohertz frequency … is the one that many medical experts and professionals [who?] are associating with cancer, with ocular melanoma. This frequency here seems to ring the tuning fork of cancer in the human body.”
Yeah, right. And you seem to ring the tuning fork of my bull**** detector.
In order for radio frequency signals to cause cancer they need to be ionizing. Ionizing means they can break the bonds of DNA. (This is simplified for the purposes of this conversation, but that's the important part.) Most scales say that ionizing radiation doesn't start until the ultra violet range of the RF spectrum, which is approximately 8 THz, that's 8,000,000,000,000 Hz.
Now, in my line of work with radars and high frequency transmission equipment we're also told that with sufficient power ionizing can happen at lower frequencies. The lower the frequency, the more power is required though. Let me give you an example; one of the systems I've worked on was a 250 kW (250,000 W) transmitter that operated in a frequency range of roughly 30 kHz - 300 kHz, so pretty close to what you're talking about. That system, even at 250 kW, is still not ionizing. 250 kW is WELL above what a residential grid could possible provide.
Now, the video says that the source of the noise is the mini split. The mini split isn't creating power, it might be creating noise though. The power is still coming from the grid, there is no way for a mini split to create power unless you somehow hook a motor to the compressor motor and drive it like a generator. So, if the grid can't provide the power required then there is no way possible for that noise to have enough power to be ionizing.
Another hole in the theory is that blocking that 20 kHz noise would be a cake walk for anyone that understands what's going on. A simple high pass filter that will block 60 Hz but pass anything above 10 kHz would take me a few seconds to solder together. Then it's just a matter of connecting it between the live wires and ground. I've made a similar device for a different transmitter that was having a huge amount of noise induced in it's control lines by it's unshielded signal lines. It honestly took me about 30 minutes total after getting approval and the lock out tag out was done.
The too long; didn't read version is simply that there's no way that's not even possible. And even if it were, which it's not, blocking it would be child's play for an electronics technician.
Edit: it seems there was three of us typing at the same time...
Arleen,
Some 20 years ago I began researching how to build a home that would be energy efficient and comfortable. Along with a lot of good building science, I read quite a few articles, threads, and books on EMR, toxic concrete, breathable buildings, and similar topics. Absorb enough of this information and you wonder how any of us can survive entering -- much less living or working in -- a conventional building.
Rather than going down the building biology rabbit hole, I suggest subscribing to GBA and reading the site thoroughly. You will not find a better resources for using science-based methods to create an efficient and a health-positive place to live.
Calum: Inverter power systems on mini-splits puts out lots of harmonics in the 10s of kHz range, but not at power levels that matter even to RF sensitive household electronics. Sure, you could filter the conducted portion to keep it from feeding back onto the house power wiring (I would expect they already have powerline filters be able to meet EMI standards, and not cause interference with other household devices plugged into the same powerlines), but there's not much shielding to be done on the radiated magnetic stuff without resorting to exotic alloys or fairly thick aluminum (not that there needs to be any shielding.)
I can see a huge business opportunity here, taking advantage of the near-superconductiveity of graphene. Weaving graphene into the liners of your hat keeps you from having to add bulky, unsightly and uncomfortable aluminum to get the same shielding protection. But why stop at hats? A whole new line of EMF protection clothing could be rolled out!
And why stop at clothes? Graphene coatings on glasses/sunglasses can block that oh-so-dangerous 20kHz stuff that might reach your eyes, mitigating against the risk of ocular melanoma. From the ocularmelanoma.org website:
"Formation of these tumors is quite rare and, as for many other forms of cancer, the exact cause is unknown. It is known that exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays (either from the sun or sunbeds) increases the risk of developing melanoma of the skin. People whose skin burns easily are most at risk – people with fair skin, fair or red hair and blue eyes. However, there has no conclusive evidence linking UV exposure and OM."
Aha- if it's not conclusive that it's the UV causing it, it's the electronic ballasts in the sunbed lights! CLEARLY they need graphene coated goggles, not just UV goggles in those tanning salons!
Or...
...just get a better information filter.
Dana,
Everyone worries [OK, not everyone -- just EMF obsessives] about ductless minsiplits and and electric blankets, but few worry about sunshine -- even though, as I noted in my article, “By far the most common health hazard of radiation is sunburn, which causes over one million new skin cancers annually.”
@ Martin
"..Yeah, right. And you seem to ring the tuning fork of my bull**** detector."
- Possibly the funniest thing you've written in ages.
Dana,
Lol, I was trying to keep it simple. My solution would make it hard to measure the interference, but yes, to actually block it would require a Faraday cage. Maybe put graphene in the paint on the walls? Or the siding?
Arleen,
Please don't take this the wrong way, we're just having a bit of fun with the idea, not poking fun at you. I can't speak for the others, but I'm glad you asked the question. Better to ask and learn than to not ask.
Arleen,
Calum makes an important point: the jokes on this page were elicited by the voice in the YouTube video, not by your question.
Here's the good news: the electricity flowing through wires from the grid to your minisplit won't injure your health. Neither will the minisplit's compressor or blower motors -- the components that use electricity.
So you don't have to worry. I just wish that these fear-mongerers who post misleading videos on the Web would stop scaring people.
Everyone worries? Not really. Most people have bigger things to worry about.
From the ocularmelanoma.org site:
"Approximately 2,500 adults are diagnosed with ocular melanoma every year. There is no known cause, though incidence is highest among people with lighter skin and blue eyes."
Maybe it's just blue eyed white folk who "need" to worry about this stuff... ;-)
So, I just wasted 3 minutes of my life (that I'll never get back) watching the video in the link. At 5 seconds into the vidi the rocket scientist narrator says "...we're looking at an oscilloscope that is measuring dirty electrici-Tee..." The upper half of the display is a spectrum analyzer, not an oscilloscope. The bottom half is an oscilloscope that is (apparently) subtracting out the 240VAC, but it's showing about 80V peak to peak of high frequency trash on the line, which simply can't be real voltage on the line- that much noise wouldn't pass muster on any EMI standard testing. It makes me wonder about the nature of probes , or if it's intentionally floated for maximum pickup. It's probably an uncalibrated magnetic pickup loop to make it easier to see on the screen rather than making an accurate measurement of real voltage or power.
The spectrum analyzer display is also linear (rather than logarithmic/decibels) on the vertical axis, measuring millivolts, not power (milliwatts, which would be more relevant) and the top line of the display is about 0.75V. There is not exactly a lot of power being delivered in ANY of those spectral lines, even if one assumes the clipped 20kHz and 40kHz lines are twice as tall as what's on the display. It's not surprising that a cheap RF capacitor housed in a big plastic blob (aka "Stetzer Filter") can bring the displayed (but not appropriately measured) voltages down to something very small on the display.
The units of the Stetzerizer Microsurge Meter are unclear, described as "volts per second" in one place, "One GS Unit is 24 Volts per second" (either of which is just a slew rate, not a measure of energy) but also " The GS units are a measure of “harmful energy” which is a function of frequency, or more generally, rate of change of voltage or dV/dt" ( complete and utter crap):
https://www.stetzerelectric.com/store/microsurge-meter/
So what is it displaying, really- volts per second or 24 volts per second? Energy, or just dV/dt?
But it's comforting to know that the equipment "Is certified by the Government of Kazakhstan as the official means of measuring RF Energy on building wires", eh?
I wonder what the filing fees for that official certification costs. Does Kazakhstan have compliance standards/limits for RF on building wires?
Calum, you wrote:
"A simple high pass filter that will block 60 Hz but pass anything above 10 kHz would take me a few seconds to solder together."
I believe what you meant to say was,
"A simple LOW pass filter that will PASS 60 Hz but BLOCK anything above 10 kHz would take me a few seconds to solder together."
Am I correct? It's very possible you're talking about something different than what I'm picturing.
Lance Peters
Lance,
If the filter is placed in series in the lines feeding the house your idea would work. But then the components need to be rated for whatever the houses service is rated for, likely 100-200 amps.
(transformer---meter---filter---distribution panel)
My idea is to have the filter go from live to ground. That way it only needs to be rated for the power of the noise.
(transformer---meter--|--distribution panel)
..............................filter
................................|
...........................ground
That wasn't easy to get formatted. Ignore the periods and squint a whole lot, please.
Hi Arleen,
I would contact the guy in the video to see what he has found out. No doubt he has looked at the topic more deeply since he did the YT, a year ago.. Stetzer filters are not the only brand.
I have a surge suppressor on the cable into the house and a power conditioner for all of my electronics which are clustered in one spot in my house. These combined with one Stetzer power conditioner keeps the DE to a minimum. I also got rid of most of the compact fluorescents and LEDs in the house.
Wow, I have never seen an article here at GBA evoke such visceral responses (and ignorance sadly), especially from my heroes Dana and Martin. Clearly this is a hot-button, but you guys seem to be way out of date on the health hazards being discussed. There is lots of science and anecdotes to support the contention that humans are electromagnetic creatures (ie, our nervous system is electrical, you agree?) and we are adversely affected by ambient electric and magnetic fields (those at bioreactive frequency range, primarily in the 2-150 khz range in the case of 'dirty electricity'). Not a big leap here.
What Mr Windheim demonstrated in that video was that an 'innocent' Minisplit, frequently lauded by gba for its effectiveness and efficiency (except when it comes to service reliability, as here the Mitsubishis get the nod), generates harmonics on the electrical lines of the house. So you guys doubt that fact OR you question whether such spikes running 24/7 would have deleterious affects on people? This is frequently the case for digital circuits that involve high speed on-off such as variable speed motors or PWM. Your dimmer switch in the house for LEDs does the same. Some people are sensitive, more every year. Further explanation is complicated and far afield, but quite valid IMHO. It is not prudent to require double blind, evidence-based science in peer-reviewed journals before taking reasonable precautions with technologies thrust upon us by corporations with a profit motive.
Before responding to Arleen's query, I'll just fill in a few gaps on the off chance that interested folks might want to actually engage in meaningful dialog that is directly within gba's scope.
SteveK -- you are usually more open minded in your comments, but at least you were gentlest with the OP ;-) I think you might really enjoy the recently uploaded free videos explaining modern 'building biology' (the 2nd one in series on EMR would be the most apropos): https://hbelc.org/free-videos-and-free-fact-sheets
Dana - I talked to Windheim and one installation improvement might be if a grounded armored metal cable is used instead of romex. The big problem with dirty electricity is when it runs within about 6 ft of the bed, but the layout of wires could mean that a minisplit in another room may cause harmful interference in the sleeping chamber. I am not sure why you would dis an entire profession (building biologist) especially as this field is nearly 50 years old and comes from germany, home of the PassivHaus so popular here at gba. If it gives more street cred, the InterNachi considers the building biology institute as a worthy source of continuing education credits for its members. The fact that Windheim's measuring apparatus can detect these in the air means your body is swimming in it too, to no good effect. The 'GS' unit of measure, though odd, was specifically devised based on US government request to quantify the harmful components that had been known to military decades ago -- a simple number for threshold of safe/not-safe. The references to eastern europe is not evidence of charlatanism but rather because those countries have performed the most science research and are most cited, even today and to protect their citizens they actually have stricter exposure limits than the US. Finally, there is a tragic backstory behind Windheim's pursuit of building biology worth reading; we all want to help people make good housing choices - http://www.windheimemfsolutions.com/my-emf-story/
Martin, my friend, I do hope you can find time to get past your bias about the benign safety of electricity. There are many associated hazards that gba promotes, unwittingly one presumes, because energy efficiency trumps all here. Even the much vaunted LED light bulbs have many associated health consequences and here we are planning to 'downgrade' to incandescents after the certificate of occupancy. It is kind of funny that people are surprised that when they receive their smart meter from the electric company, that their monthly bill increases unexpectedly and apparently this is because the dirty electricity harmonics and transients created by badly designed devices are measured as consumed power and billed accordingly. Gives one pause, doesn't it? You might dip a toe in the emfwarriors curated library of about 1500 articles and papers to see that many, many people have major improvement by only adjusting their electricity exposure - https://www.emfwarriors.com/library/
Frozenflyboy - thanks for positive note. The GS filters work to add some buffering on the line to even things out. That works reasonably well in an ad hoc way, but caution is to be exercised in retrofits of older houses with quirky, non-code compliant wiring (specifically, physical separation of hot and neutral wires, or maybe coupling of neutral and ground other than at the main panel) since such filters will then *increase* magnetic noise.
Arleen, this is a similar question I had last week. Thanks for asking about it here. All variable speed motor devices will do this, to some degree. If there was an option to have a 'permanent split capacitor' instead then that would solve it, though losing efficiency. I have not had time to pursue it but I doubt such is offered with the fujitsu or mitsubishi miisplits. There are Stetzer and Greenwave filters but you have to experiment or get a consult with someone like Windheim in your area. The 20 khz spike is annoying as a residual, but more important is to route wires far from your sleeping places so you have less exposure where it counts. Consider grounded 'armored cable' instead or normal romex from panel to the minisplit to shield the electric field. All told, the minisplit might not be the worst offender in your house.
Finally, sorry for the tone. This topic of building 'healthful' housing, rather than 'energy efficient' ones has become a sore point for me lately as I find myself mandated to have unwelcome or unheathful choices as I build my own house (such as LED and CFL lighting required here in MA due to HERS Performance Path validation). I like the stated intention of the building biologists -- your personal health is more important than optimizing performance and it is certainly much more than merely bricks and mortar (and glues and caulks and tapes, tapes, tapes!).
Deleted
Kenneth,
You wrote, "Further explanation is complicated and far afield ... It is not prudent to require double blind, evidence-based science in peer-reviewed journals before taking reasonable precautions with technologies."
On the contrary, it is prudent. I'm one of the declining number of Americans who believes in science.
"Bau-Biology" or "Building Biology" is junk science. It is a field full of charlatans (and a few well-meaning dupes) focused on scaring people about the dangers of EMFs. Scientists have been unable to find any evidence to support the claims of these "Bau-Biology" adherents.
The problem of junk science is growing, so an insistence on evidence-based science and publication in peer-reviewed journals is more important than ever.
For more information, see "EMFs and Human Health."
Martin, I know you are passionate and knowledgeable and have repeatedly offered me good building advice over the last two years. Likely, you have seen folks who are inept, moneygrabbing, incompetent in BauBiology, but likely other building trades as well. It is harsh to judge an entire Body of Knowledge based on some individiduals. But, let's leave that aside.
"Science" is a very good concept over the long term, but the practice is imperfect especially in the short term. Scientists are imperfect humans-- they are funded, beholden to grants/ and those funders, manipulate their data and conclusions, even within the peer review scheme. Intentionally or unintentionally. We have seen it multiple times (remember that we were told that the science said that FATS cause heart disease, when it turns out it was the SUGAR, science funded by the Sugar Lobby);I have previously mentioned the 2012-ish scientific study that refutes the prior scientific nonsense about radon being a cause of health issues in people's homes). Anyone doing much research on 'cold fusion'' these days? Not so much due to it still being considered a career killer. Scientists like to have a paycheck too. With so many opposing conclusions on the same circumstances, "science' has become a faith-based enterprise anyway.
It seems very much not unreasonable to take a precautionary view when new stuff is introduced. Manufacturers lined beverage bottles with BPA and much hormonal disregulation occurred for decades before the "science caught up'. Was BPA tested for safety first? Was that done using 'science'?
Have you read the 2013 Dirty Electricity book by Doctor Samuel Milham. It is an easy read. He has written many peer reviewed epidemiological papers for five decades. EMF definitely was responsible for childhood leukemia, exactly tracking electification of US in 1930s-1950s (and absent in Amish communities who abjure electrical use), various kinds of 'sick building syndrome' health complaints. Many, many scientists have found EMF-induced health problems in humans and livestock since the 1960s so I am dumbstruck that there is repeatedly mentioned that this still have no reasonable evidence. There is definitely a lot of FUD from the bigger corporate interests that would not like negative press or nasty regulation. No way that could bias the Science. No way. (*intense sarcasm*)
In your detailed article, you mentioned that WHO does not think that EMF is a big deal. Yet, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5504984/ in 2017 clearly says that WHO has listed RF radiation as a Type 2B Carcinogen. EMF is more and more frequently associated with troubles.
All of the this is not theoretical and as we see the building community push inexorably for 'smart homes' the electric smog becomes unbearable to an increasing number of folks in the population. Maybe if we first demand that scientists prove something is safe (such that we can review all the data and conclusions transparently and know the funders and ethical entanglements) then we can use it instead of assuming a greenlight first. But I know that shiny new toys will always have appeal. And Progress cannot be slowed waiting for all the facts to come in.
Anyway, thanks for engaging in a nice discourse. Let's get back to buildin'
Peace
Kenneth,
Unfortunately, a large group of Americans -- including Fox News, the man in the White House, and the new head of the EPA -- share your distrust of science. I find that sad.
Scientific discoveries often overturn earlier theories; that's how science works. But rejecting science out of the false belief that science is "faith-based" puts us squarely in the camp of the charlatans and believers in superstition.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Science is fundamentally just following the evidence. If you reject that, there's not much left to base anything on. In most cases when people malign science, they do so in a pretty selective way; they cite scientific evidence when it supports their ideology, question it when it doesn't. This is how we have things like the modern flat earth society, the anti-vax movement, anti-GMO movement and zero point energy nonsense. This building biology stuff seems like more of the same.
Trevor,
I agree. For more on this topic, see "In Praise of Scientists and Scholars."
For one person's opinion on Bau Biology, see this essay.
Cate Bramble wrote, “A quick search of an Environmental Design Library at a university shows you that bau-biology (or whatever you choose to call it) is not a mainstream study. ... Bau-biology is primarily an updated set of bizarre ideas from 19th-century cranks, heavily laced with Spiritualism and its New Age descendants. The idea has been to keep the philosophy and just update the language with current buzzwords to provide a scientific ambiance for quackery. ... In the 19th century a medical doctor named Ernst Hartmann concocted the crank notion of Earth-induced grids criss-crossing the planet and causing a bewildering variety of vague symptoms. Someone updated the crank’s ideas (and others), injected enough worry to sway the credulous, and invented bau-biology. ...it is easy to identify bau biology as pseudoscience simply because so many baubiologists rely on dowsing to analyze a nonexistent problem called 'geopathic stress.'”
>RF radiation as a Type 2B Carcinogen
Possible carcinogen. But so is caffeic acid, which occurs in all plants (try eliminating these from your life). And of course they are all highly dose dependent (ie, don't compare stray EMF/RF from wire/equipment to a cell phone held against your head).
Science isn't completely trustworthy, but it's far better than the other options.
I think there is a legitimate question of how to react to limited data. Say that a new study finds that substance X (commonly found in homes) has a weak correlation to cancer. Do you a) do nothing and wait for more data or b) work to eliminate it from your home?
This isn't a visceral response, this is just calling it what it is- BS served up in a pseudoscience wrapper.
Making up stuff (or stating without citation) that line voltage noise in that frequency band is the proximate cause of a particular somewhat rare cancer is scaremongering, not science. If there's science behind it, lets see the evidence. If the ocularmelanoma.org doesn't even mention powerline voltage in passing as a risk factor, what is there (if anything) lends credibility to the a Youtube vidiot selling widgets that "fix" it asserting that there really is a link?
If there are "...technologies thrust upon us by corporations with a profit motive..." I'd definitely count Windheim et al among the profit motivated tech mongers, eh? ;-)
RF radiation can cause problems sure, at what intensity is it problematic? Yes there are documented human cases of health problems related to high EMFs at low and intermediate frequency, and there are safety limit standards set for power industry workers to limit their risk, but at levels many orders of magnitude higher than would be experienced in the home, even a home heated and cooled by an inverter drive mini-split.
The Stetzerizer Microsurge Meter doesn't even measure radiated EMF, it's measuring voltage noise on the powerlines, not radiated watts or field flux measured at a distance. I suppose if you grabbed on to the bare conductors you would be also subject to those voltage spikes, but the bigger biological hazard is being subjected the 200VAC+ line voltage. Just as living in a house with a "clean" powerline voltage doesn't put you at risk unless you're in physical contact with the line, living in a house with voltage spikes at something other than the powerline frequency isn't imparting any significant energy to you.
Having spent at least part of my career actually measuring both conducted & radiated emissions from equipment I'd hazard that the power supplies in your LED computer screen you're reading this on are delivering 100s of times more direct radiated EMF in the 10-100Khz band passing through your body than you would get from the voltage spikes from the inverter drive in the mini-split (yet still tens of 1000s of times lower than would still be allowed for power industry worker.)
The whole LED-spectrum stuff is a similarly concocted issue without merit. Where is the evidence? There has been many decades worth of natural experiment where office workers have spent most of their day under fluorescent lighting emitting even less infra-red than LED.
Being from Germany, the home of PassivHaus or having been around for 5 decades doesn't lend building biology any cred. (Rather than "...so popular..." PassivHaus gets it's fair amount of critcism here too. :-) ) Germans are as gullible and prone to conspiracy theories, half-baked pseudoscience, etc as anybody else.
Phrenology, anyone?
Jon R. asks a great question (comment #21), and I hope earlier commenters weigh in on how to respond to data that is limited. We all agree that junk science is a despicable scam, and hope that it remains on the fringes. When thoughtful concern is expressed about some technology, a confident person should be able to consider it without turning to derision. (Invoking phrenology as a comparison is a bit disingenuous.) It's legitimate to debate, for example, where the actionable level of concern lies. Or, who sets the standard for what constitutes "a preponderance of evidence?" How do you proceed with an argument over technology when the opponent is weighing additional factors beyond objective science?
Not many here will have sympathy for EMF alarmists. Or climate change deniers. I sure don't. But I, for one, have tremendous respect for some Amish communities, which appear to be downright hostile to technology but instead have powerfully proactive methods for choosing which technology to embrace. Nuclear power is thorny example: it's carbon-neutral and shown by science to be rigorously safe, but... not safe enough for my comfort. On this site, there are entrenched camps on issues of foam use, PEX plumbing, radiant floor heat, and many others. We abide (usually) the ongoing debates with those, and when science fails to convince, other factors are brought to bear. It's incredibly educational.
Andy,
Jon suggested we invoke the precautionary principle, and I agree that a valid argument can be made in favor of the precautionary principle. I mentioned the precautionary principle in my article on EMFs.
I have no problem with people who decide to live without a smart phone -- I'm one of them (although not because of EMF worries). If someone wants a house without spray foam, I get it. It's their house.
I also agree, Andy, that reasoned debate on these issues -- on GBA and elsewhere -- is healthy and educational.
Where does all this leave us as designers or builders?
I don't know what steps I would take if I did invoke the precautionary principle. Surely I'd need some evidence that what I would do differently was effective?
I do know i would not take on clients who expressed fears that EMFs in their house were harmful. I don't have any useful expertise to give them and, with the sources of information on EMFs being so contentious, no way of getting it.
Andy: Phrenology was only mentioned because of the implied inherent credibility of the German source of the "science".
""I am not sure why you would dis an entire profession (building biologist) especially as this field is nearly 50 years old and comes from germany,..."
Phrenology may be take as derision now, but for many decades was avidly taken up widely across Europe and the UK, but in the end proved to be at best quasi-science, unsupported by the data, another not quite half-baked theory of German origin.
Uh huh, comes from Germany does it? Lots of stuff comes from Germany. I'll take the merits of Bach & bier over the thin gruel of Baubiologie
Malcolm,
For a builder or designer like you, I would imagine that you might want to apply the precautionary principle to materials you introduce into your own house. Or not. It's up to you, and it's a personal decision.
When it comes to building or designing for others -- your job -- I don't think that the precautionary principle is particularly useful. Here's my advice to builders and designers: Obey all building codes; follow the installation instructions provided by materials manufacturers; aim for environmental responsibility; and have good insurance.
And if a client comes to you and shares the information that he or she has chemical sensitivity, or wishes to avoid the dangers of EMFs, it's perfectly OK to say, "I don't think I'm a good fit for your needs," if that's what your gut tells you to do.
Finally, it's important to distinguish between two cases. Case A is the publication of one scientific study that raises the possibility (for example) of a correlation between a certain chemical and a certain type of cancer. Let's say this initial study has not yet been confirmed by follow-up studies. Someone who reads this study may choose to apply the precautionary principle when it comes to this chemical.
Case B is an organization or author who posts a YouTube video with demonstrably inaccurate pseudo-scientific explanations for imagined harms. This type of video is designed to scare people, and its propagation is reprehensible.
There have been two cases near here where the readily available data/science said that the drinking water was safe and then later said the same water wasn't safe. Tests indicate mine is safe, but they measure only for a handful of things, leaving hundreds of known harmful substances that could be present. So I spend about $30/year on home reverse osmosis. Crazy or cautious?
I expect there will be more data showing that some indoor air pollutants are more harmful than currently known.
Jon,
That seems to me to be a sensible precaution. What I don't know is what the equivalent approach to EMFs would be, or how you would find it out.
Martin's advice suggests a pretty reasonable path to me.
Malcolm,
On the EMF, what about advising a client that he/she may not want to build his/her new home under existing high voltage transmission lines?
Steve,
if a client came to me and said they had a lot under the lines and wanted to build, I would ask if they were aware there were some concerns around that, and if they were, I would proceed. If they asked for more information as to what the concerns were, I would have to admit I wasn't in a position to intelligently advise them, and suggest they find someone who might.
The problem from my perspective is that, unlike other potential hazards, like earthquakes, floods, contaminated sites etc. I can't bring in consultants with recognized expertise.
Malcolm,
I think you are being reasonable. I brought up the power lines since that is one scenario that would give me pause. (In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit being a baubiology kool-aid drinker before discovering GBA.)
Years ago I visited a business for a series of workshops. Much of the property was near high-voltage lines. One evening the business owner invited my group outside to an area underneath the power lines. He produced a couple of T8 bulbs, which started to glow. The lines were carrying enough current to generate a significant enough EMF to excite the gases in the tube. That imagine pops back into my head whenever I see a home or business located under high-voltage lines.
Most of us are likely exposed to EMFs all the time. But I'm sure I wouldn't want to live inside a really strong one even if the risk was relatively insignificant.
Steve,
I wouldn't live under high voltage lines either.
I was looking for EMF info related to mini splits and stumbled across this discussion and felt compelled to take the time to sign up and comment.
I am actually someone who has EMF illness/sensitivity/whatever you want to call it. I could write a novel on what I have been through, learned, and experienced first-hand but will rather get right to the point I think you all need to hear.
For whatever reason, and I have at least 3 main culprits I've identified for me, I react to not only RF EMF such as Wifi, cordless phone, cell phones/towers, smart meters, etc. but also what you are discussing - dirty electricity. The main symptoms I experience are head pressure, tinnitus, brain fog, flushing, and fatigue. No, tin foil hats and clothes do not work but copper-mesh bed canopies do and meters prove it - along with my symptom relief.
The worst sources of dirty electricity I've been exposed to come from high power LED light bulbs. There are some which have actually made me feel dizzy and the effect is removed when the bulb is turned off. Placebo effect? Maybe - but the first time I encountered a severe reaction was at a Dr office where a couch had two tables with lights at the end. I did not know what was causing my reaction and we turned off several devices, finally the lights. He had installed new bulbs. I could immediately feel the release in head pressure/tension. I was not expecting this to happen - it just did - and therefore doubt it could have been a placebo reaction. Also, I returned to the office with a Gauss meter and verified the electrical and magnetic fields produced by the bulbs were not excessive. I believe the reaction was due to dirty electricity based on this analysis - and yes, based on what the mystical magical Stetzer meter later reported.
As I continued my search for why I was feeling so ill from EMF I made another discovery: the 4ft power transformer box 25ft from the front of my house, along with an underground power distribution line running both in front and along the bedroom side of my house (we are on a corner) have been creating magnetic field readings 5-6 times greater than any other building or house I have been able to measure with the Gauss meter. What level? In the front yard in the summer when the Texas heat is cranking up the ACs, the meter reads 4-5 mG in the driveway and side yards. In the house the street-facing rooms read up to 2mG and when it is 105 degrees outside, the entire house is over 1mG. I have stood directly below many large overhead power lines and get readings in the same ballpark. My friend's houses, HomeDepot, WholeFoods, etc at the same period of time are all .3 mG or less.
So I have EMF illness and have some pretty large exposures. Coincidence? Maybe but I don't think so. Remember, studies are done because someone can make money off them which is why so many low cost, proven, unpatentable solutions are never studied. If you only attribute "science" to those things which have a study and don't consider mountains of research, analysis, and yes - anecdotal evidence - which modern technology and communication affords us, you won't get the full truth. Whether the youtube video was legit or not is not my point. My point is EMF illness is real - I am living it - and you would all do well to read up on what people are learning and experiencing.
https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/lightsensitive.htm
You clearly need to visit a neurologist.
" Remember, studies are done because someone can make money off them which is why so many low cost, proven, unpatentable solutions are never studied."
Except such correlations have been studied and nothing was found. However there IS money to be made off of "bad science" fear mongering hype.
"If you only attribute "science" to those things which have a study and don't consider mountains of research, analysis, and yes - anecdotal evidence - which modern technology and communication affords us, you won't get the full truth. "
Except "anecdotes" is not evidence and is subject to personal bias. This is how we get anti-vaccers despite all the studies showing the benefits far outweigh the risks. How we get flat-earth advocates despite the fact it was known, proven, and accepted the earth is round centuries ago.
A gauss meter is going to measure magnetic fields, NOT electric fields, and will likely NOT measure with any accuracy if at all RF fields from things like WiFi that operate in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. RF energy and exposure limits are typically measured in either dBuV or dBm, which are units of energy, and very small units at that (decibels referenced to one microvolt, or decibels referenced to one milliwatt, respectively).
Any RF (radio frequency) energy will cause very minimal heating of body tissues. You won’t be able to perceive it any other way, and probably won’t even notice the pretty much immeasurably small amount of heating. The human nervous system, and any other biological system, IS NOT capable of responding to stimulus of frequencies in the megahertz and higher region.
My guess is you’re more sensitive to one or both of either the high frequency flicker (usually in the kHz or 10s of kHz) from some LED lighting, and possibly aural harmonics (the “hum” or “buzz”) from things like transformers. For the flickering light, try different bulbs — some are worse than others. For the hum/buzz, stay away from those devices.
Regarding trying to filter out EMI, which is what you really get with “noisy electricity”, not EMF, it’s not difficult and there ARE many filters to do this. There is a company by the name of Corcom that makes all kinds of filters for this. To really make measurements of this type of interference, you really need a spectrum analyzer which is not a cheap piece of equipment.
If you run all your power cabling in metallic conduit you’ll shield the wiring and limit and radiated energy.
Regarding exposure limits, the FCC publishes standards for this stuff. I’m an EE with a background in RF and microwave systems design and have had to deal with this stuff plenty of times, as well as in telecom facilities where it’s a concern for system reliability. There have been many legitimate studies, which are also done to LEARN and not just to make money, all of which show the same thing: all you get is a little heating.
Be careful with all the pseudo science out there. A lot of it preys on people’s lack of understanding of things they cannot feel or see, or thing that are complex and not easily understood. There are also tricks of using the wrong too to measure something (like using a gaussmeter to try to measure an RF field), which will give wacky, and meaningless, readings.
For a little perspective, the earth’s natural magnetic field is about 0.25 to 0.65 gauss.
Bill
One of the low-level ways that human intelligence works is by constructing narratives around perceptions. Baby sees Mama, baby sees hands, baby sees Mama again, baby sees hands again, baby sees Mama again. "Hands kidnapping Mama, must stop Hands with sharp object" is what Baby concludes. We fit what we observe into what we know. That's just what thinking is.
One of the low-level ways personality & individuality works is through ego-defense mechanisms. The story we tell ourselves about ourselves is one of the most powerful things in the human mind, and it will warp whatever narratives it constructs about the surrounding world in order to flavor that story about ourself in a beneficial way.
This combination leaves us susceptible to all sorts of unproductive pathways of thinking. A few of them are common enough to have clinical names, lots of them don't.
Electromagnetism is not how we were raised. It's not part of our story - it's not intuitive. It's this creepy, threatening Other. For most people it may as well be magic - inexplicable and yet powering our world. This is understandably difficult to interpret.*
There are quite a lot of rare illnesses out there, and most of them do indeed go unidentified. Research goes where the money is. But there's fairly good prior reason to believe that EMF sensitivity is not one of them. There's no indication that humans are particularly sensitive to EMF, and if certain humans had some bizarre neural structure sensivitive enough to detect most of the things you claim to detect, putting those same humans into an MRI would cause the that organ to move around rapidly and heat up, either cooking their brain from the inside like a microwave, or scrambling their brain like an internal blender.
MRIs are not observed to do this, despite a field strength of 20,000,000 milliGauss. They will happily rip steel shrapnel out of old war wounds right through your ribcage and embed it in the frame with the speed of a bullet.
You should also be seeing reliably dose-dependent effects, were this ailment biological in nature. It wouldn't be random reactions in a doctor's office (a place so anxiety-provoking it causes a statistical jump in blood pressure just being there), it would be building symptoms as you near a high-voltage power line or transformer, and then fading systems as you go away. It would be no symptoms at all when you're at 10% or 1% of the field strength of your peak exposure.
Placebo reactions and even placebo ailments can have very significant physical manifestations. This has happened before on a mass scale, and it will happen again - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness
In many cases you may see mass psychogenic illnesses constructed atop real verifiable physical conditions that are unrelated to the purported cause. MSG-sensitivity ("Chinese Restaurant Syndrome"), for example, appears to have been created as a satirical NEJM letter on a bet, and was reinforced by people's lived experiences with over-eating, or with dietary hypernatremia (Americanized Chinese food sans rice being some of the saltiest). https://news.colgate.edu/magazine/2019/02/06/the-strange-case-of-dr-ho-man-kwok/
Attempts to prove EMF sensitivity using double blind controlled trials have not been fruitful:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15784787
If your ability proves real under double-blind testing, you might be eligible for a prize:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal
* I maintain that Maxwell's equations are witchcraft
Please do not feed the trolls.
Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Both Get Dirty and the Pig Likes It.
Walta
I've been publishing a Quebec-based magazine on healthy housing and writing about EMFs and health for 30 years. I recommend you translate this French article on solar PV and dirty electricity (DE) by physicist Diane Bastien : https://maisonsaine.ca/article?id=100170
She recommends filtering DE from inverters (heat pumps have one to convert DC to AC) with the DNA (dissipation noise attenuation) line filter by https://rfreduce.com/mxdna3/ or the Power Perfect Wire-In https://saticshield.com/energy-management-system/power-perfect-wire-in/
and recommend you read epidemiologist Sam Milham's book on Dirty Electricity http://www.sammilham.com as well as toxicologist Magda Havas https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17178585/ Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: biological effects of dirty electricity with emphasis on diabetes and multiple sclerosis
Building Biologist Oram Miller explains at https://createhealthyhomes.com/education/emfs-intro/
''The fourth type of EMF, so-called “dirty electricity” (DE), is generally defined as the electric and magnetic field components of harmonic frequencies of the fundamental frequency of AC electricity on our circuits and power cords.''
You should ask your electrician to install a line filter.
See also engineer Jeromy Johnson's articles : https://www.emfanalysis.com/?s=dirty+electricity
"Dirty electricity" is quack stuff. You can spend a bunch of money for nothing on all these "solutions". If they're telling you the harmonics are from the fundamental frequency, they're being sneaky. Pure sinewaves don't have harmonics. All the harmonic energy on the utility line is from distortion, not the fundamental itself. The simple reality here is that someone has come up with this "dirty electricity" thing to try to make money off of people who don't know any better. Line noise, which is what we usually think of it as in the engineering world, has been known since the beginning of power systems, and it's filtered out as needed. It's VERY EASY to filter this stuff out, and pretty much every power supply out there already takes care of this for you. There is no need for any extra filtering in nearly all situations, and no one is "sensitive" to harmonic content in a wire. As we as mentioned previously in this thread, it's much more likely someone would be sensitive to aural (humming) or visual (flickering lights) stimulus, both of which can and do cause issues for some people.
If you think you're suffering from "dirty electricity", don't waste money on stuff marketed online for this made up problem: replace lights in one of the rooms in your home, and see if that solves the issue for you in that room. If it does, it's flicker that's getting you. A simple test is to just use incandescent lights in one room for a while, since they don't have the issue with high frequency flicker that many LEDs and flourscent lights do.
BTW, "dissipation noise attenuation" is made up technobabble to make something sound fancy. Line filters are simple LC (inductor-capacitor) networks, they don't have fancy names. You can think of the inductor in these filters as acting to resist that transfer of noise energy, and the capacitor acts to short out the noise energy. The result is you suppress the unwanted line noise energy. There is nothing magic or new here, the techniques to do this have been around for over a century, and the technology and the issue are both very well understood.
Bill
Bill, Dr Miham is no quack, he was head epidemiologist for the State of Washington Public Health Dept: http://www.sammilham.com/bio.shtm
Please read his papers A New Electromagnetic Exposure Metric:
High Frequency Voltage Transients Associated With
Increased Cancer Incidence in Teachers in a California School
Historical Evidence That Electrification Caused the
20th Century Epidemic of “Diseases of Civilization” and Dirty Electricity & Epidemics of Obesity and Diabetes Sam Milham 2013
at http://www.sammilham.com/links.shtm
PS: There is no such thing as a pure 60-Hz sine wave anymore as it is polluted by high frequency transient interference from billions of digital devices.
https://buildingbiologyinstitute.org/free-fact-sheets/dirty-electricity/
MEP (Dirty Electricity) Factsheet from the Building Biology Institute (several of its experts are engineers)
MICRO-SURGE ELECTRIC POLLUTION
This course is an extract and elaboration on this topic from the IBE Electromagnetic Radiation course series. This course is intended for the greater public interested in having a better understanding of electromagnetic pollution. It attempts to be simple enough to allow people learning about the topic for the first time to become conversant about it and yet technical enough to overcome skepticism.
You can download this fact sheet by clicking here.
Overall, this course takes a historical perspective. Though dirty electricity has been with us since the late 1800s it was not recognized as a problem until the late 1900s. Thanks to pioneers in the field we now have a unified voice on the subject.
The course discusses the science, dirty electricity-specific health studies, and measurement and mitigation solutions.
Dirty electricity is a ubiquitous problem in modern civilization. It is present everywhere, inside and outside the home. Major sources are utility power, switch mode power supplies (SMPS) used in electronics, AMI meters (due to conducted high-frequency pulsed radiation), Energy efficient lights with a SMPS, variable speed motors in “smart” appliances, PV (Solar) system invertors and utility ground current (especially rural areas).
Initial epidemiological studies and case studies indicate cause for concern and need for further study. It has been shown that body voltage and body amperage (induced current) increase in its presence. Dirty electricity is linked to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, ADHD, asthma and just irritation. Applying the precautionary principle is warranted, especially with our most vulnerable populations: children, pregnant women, elderly, electromagnetic-sensitive people, and people already infirmed.
Building Biology consultants holistically evaluate the electromagnetic environment and measure high-frequency radiation, magnetic fields and electric fields including microsurge electrical pollution—MEP (dirty electricity). Wiring errors are a common problem in U.S. homes, which cause excessive magnetic fields and preclude the use of plug-in filters until the errors are fixed. In-side-the-house filters are the last step to cleaning up a polluted electromagnetic environment. Replacing MEP generating or unplugging devices while not being used is the first step.
As a society, we should insist on systemic solutions to the existence of dirty electricity in our environment; built-in filters for appliances and electronics, upgrades to building and electrical codes to install shielded wiring, building power supply line filters and better monitoring and mitigation of ground current.
Want to learn more on this issue? Click the comprehensive online course, here below.
References:
Cancer Definition and Examples – Biology Online Dictionary. Biology Articles, Tutorials & Dictionary Online.
Sorry, but this is a non-issue, at least the way you're presenting it here. Yes, there is a radiated field from power wiring, but it's not the "dirty" part that causes that, it's the power itself, the "fundamental", as you put it. All the noise is insignificant in terms of overall energy content. Commercial wiring, for the most part, is already shielded, since it is a common code requirement to run such wire in metal conduit, primarily for better fire resistance.
I deal with this kind of thing at work all the time, since harmonic content on the power line is an issue in critical facilities and we filter it out for cost and efficiency concerns. The power companies already require this, and fine for poor power factor if you're particularly bad about your current waveform. The fines for seriously bad power waveforms are signficant, I have seen as high as 30% of an electric bill (thousands of dollars PER MONTH). In these cases, the offenders are usualy large variable speed motor drives and certain types of large capacitor input power supplies. None of this stuff generates very high frequencies though, the power line usually has very little energy above the 5th to 7th harmonics (300 to 420 Hz). There is near zero energy content above that, simply because large power transformers and the wiring itself does not efficiently transmit energy content at higher frequencies over very long distances.
Switching power supplies do represent a potential source of noise, but they already have filtering as part of their design, to be able to meet EMI requirements of regulatory agencies. In the attached pic of a switching power supply (a 300 watt supply) I happen to have open and operating in my lab here at the moment, you can clearly see the common mode inductive choke (the "L" in an LC filter), and the line side capacitor (the "C" in the LC filter) indicated. These same basic components will be present in pretty much every switching power supply sold anywhere in the world. There are some additional components around the two I've indicated that also act to filter out switching transients from the supply before they make it out onto the power line. Most of these power supplies are also power factor corrected now, because that's a regulatory requirement for power supplies sold into the EU's markets, and most power supplies are built to be able to be sold into any market in the world for economies of scale.
The second pic I've included is the utility sinewave from a receptacle maybe 10 feet away from that power supply, on the same circuit (a 20A, 120V circuit). You can see essentially no noise at all. I could run an FFT plot on that 'scope to show harmonic content, but I didn't bother to take the time. If it was really bad, it would be visible here. You can see the somewhat flat tops to the crests of the sinewave, which is about as bad as the "dirty" part of power typically gets. That flattened out crest is the result of countless non-linear loads on the utility line, usually with less than great power factor, and the result is pretty minimal distortion of the sinewave. No high frequency harmonic content of any significance is present here. I have much more capable frequency measuring equipment here than that simple o'scope, but it's more complex to setup, so more difficult to make a quick measurement to post here, and it won't show anything interesting anyway. I can measure from 2Hz to 22GHz with the equipment I have available to me here, with professional level equipment.
"Microsurges" are a non-issue, and not something we worry about. Any TVSS (fancy way to say "surge suppressor") can easily deal with those. The utility system already has, spaced along pole lines and at every substation, signficant surge suppression and line filtering equipment for system protection and power factor correction. Ground currents tend to be an issue only in what are known as Single Wire Earth Return (SWER) systems, which, to my knowledge, are only really used to any great extent in rural Australia. There can be galvanic issues with earth return current for HVDC power transmission systems operating in monopole mode (which is usually only done during maintenance), but there is not any significant AC component to those currents. Wiring errors in residential systems do not cause a difference in noise. If you reverse the hot an neutral connections, for example, nothing changes -- electricity just flows in a loop, and does not know or care about the orientation of the connections in the receptacle. If you switch the hot and ground, you have big problems you'll know right away.
You can't filter out magnetic fields with a plug-in filter, either, since magnetic fields from wiring are part of the process of electric current flowing in a wire. That's physics. You can only filter conducted noise, which is already handled by filters in most equipment that can either create such noise, or would be adversely affected by it.
There are too many people out there trying to make money by scaring people here, and that's a problem. There are others that want to blame every conceivable ailment on something that either sounds scary or that they don't understand. "Dirty Electricity" is just the latest thing some are trying to point at to scare people to make a buck. It just isn't something people need to be concerned with.
Bill
Bill,
It's good of you to post such a comprehensive rebuttal if just to provide a record for those viewing this discussion in the future - but what a huge waste of time that you have to deal with this sort of nonsense at all.
I think it's important to address this kind of nonsense to keep it from spreading. There is far too much faslehood being spread on the Internet, and it helps no one. We don't need people scared to install a minisplit because they think the power supply is going to give them cancer, for example. I can imagine someone smoking multiple packs of cigarettes every day being afraid the minisplit on their wall is their biggest health risk because of nonsense on the Internet about "dirty electricity". This kind of nonsense being taken seriously is bad for us all.
As an aside, I suspect if you open up one of those plug-in "dirty electricity" filters, what you'd find is a simple capacitor, hopefully at least one X1 rated for "across the line use" (although you might just find a ceramic disc cap, which is cheaper). This is the "C" part I pointed out in that power supply pic I posted. For anyone interested in what these actually cost, I'm including a link to a typical part from a commercial electronic component distributor I often use. The part is 61 cents each in 10 piece quantities, and gets significantly cheaper if bought in larger lots:
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/panasonic-electronic-components/ECQ-UBAF104K/13280200
That gives you an idea of how much people selling these "filters" are ripping you off.
Bill
Power quality affects teacher wellbeing and student and student behavior in three Minnesota Schools : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969708004634
Prevention Magazine exposes Dirty Electricity : This article features the work of Sam Milham and Lloyd Morgan at La Quinta CA, where a cancer cluster among teachers was associated with the amount of dirty electricity in their classroom. Cancer clusters are showing up elsewhere but no one is measuring dirty electricity and perhaps they should be, writes toxicologist Magda Havas
https://www.prevention.com/life/a20460660/electromagnetic-fields-and-your-health/
I can write a study showing that the occurance of multiple cancers is linked to the sky being blue. It would go something along the lines of "we have shown that the incidence of x, y and z cancers is highest during periods of blue sky", and neglecting to mention that that's also the part of the day when the doctors are at work running diagnostic tests on their patients. Sure, more cancers are found during the day than at night! In statistics, this is stated as "correlation (things happening "together" does not necassarily imply causation (things CAUSING other things)".
Those Stetzer filters come with a meter, but the meter is just a numeric display. This reminds me of my chem lab professor in college, who (in a thick German accent), one day wrote a number on the board and glared at us in the class. He then pointed at the number and yelled "WHAT IS!? IS COWS?! IS HOUSES?! UNITS! UNITS! UNITS!". What he meant was that a number without an associated unit of measure is meaningless for a measuring device. What is this "meter" measuring? Anything? How is the measurement defined? Maybe it's just measuring random noise inherent in the operation of it's own internal circuitry. To make valid measurements, you need a defined methodology and unit of measure, so that your measurements can be compared against each other and used to actually, well, MEASURE something.
Another thing that comes to mind is an episode of the show "Mythbusters", about bullet trajectories. They had shown that the physics said a bullet could only travel so far in a particular situation, but they still had a surgeon claiming that someone got shot from miles away over hill (some impossible path, I don't remember exactly what it was). Sooo.... We have a doctor claiming something happened that can be demonstrated to be physically impossible. The conclusion here: the doctor is mistaken. This stuff is well understood, it's not magic. The same applies to "dirty electricity". Everything about this is well understood, with defined measuring methodologies that have been around for decades. It simply is not a problem people need to be concerned with.
Those "filters in the products" mentioned in your second article are already part of most products, as I showed in the first picture I posted earlier. I'm quite confident that if I were to spend some real time digging into that study, I would find they didn't control all the variables, had no control group, did not consider other factors, etc., and that they can't really conclude what they did. This is common in studies, and the reason for the "peer review" process is for others in the field to poke holes in studies like this, with the goal of arriving at the correct conclusion for everyone to benefit. This is how science works, and is how we learn about the physical world. It does no one any good to put out false claims with poorly run "studies", unless those people are pushing some product to enrich themselves (like the useless plug-in filters for "dirty electricity"). It's a fact that if you even tell your research subjects what you're doing, it will skew your results, because people will think they are perceiving a difference when there is none. That's the entire point of placebos in medical research -- you use it to cancel out the psychological part of the problem in your study, where some people will claim to see benefits from a medication they weren't even actually taking.
Waaay back in the time of snake oil salesmen and patent medicine, we saw similar claims of a single remedy for all kinds of ailments, both real and imagined. One of the first things that should make people suspicious of these claims of the imagined problems with "dirty electricity" is that it allegedly causes everything from cancer to asthma to skin irritation. Sure it does. This would be a lot more believeable if the claim was that "dirty electricity" caused one specific thing. I can claim that every medical condition imaginable is linked to exposure to blue sky, for example, and I'd be right! But it wouldn't mean anything, and there is no causal relationship.
So again, this entire "dirty electricity" thing is NOT WORTH WORRYING ABOUT. There is no issue here. This is a nonsense issue being pushed by people trying to sell useless products to enrich themselves by playing on people's imagined fears of the unknown. That's all this is.
Bill
And here's what happens when that peer review is done (from https://www.nature.com/articles/jes20108/ )
Environmental exposure to high-frequency voltage transients (HFVT), also termed dirty electricity, has been advocated among electro(hyper)sensitive interest groups as an important biological active component of standard electromagnetic pollution. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, in which only seven articles were identified. Exposure to HFVT was associated with increased cancer risks, while preferential removal of 4–100 kHz HFVT from 50–60 Hz ELF circuits was linked to a variety of improvements in health (plasma glucose levels in diabetic patients, symptoms of multiple sclerosis, asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and insomnia), well-being (tiredness, frustration, general health, irritation, sense of satisfaction, mood), and student behavior. However, all these published studies were subject to significant methodological flaws in the design of the studies, the assessment of exposure, and the statistical analysis, which prevented valid assessment of a causal link between this exposure metric and adverse effects. Environmental exposure to HFVT is an interesting EMF exposure metric, which might explain the spurious results from epidemiological studies using ‘standard’ ELF and RF exposure metrics. However, at present, methodological problems in published studies prohibit the valid assessment of its biological activity.
With the proliferation of EVs dirty electricity problems will get way worse. Since the EVs drive on rubber tires, all the dirty electricity producing during driving is stored in the car as it has no path to ground.
As soon as you plug the car in, all the built up noise gets released in the house wiring.
If you think a one or two kilowatt drive in a mini split is bad, think how much a 500kW EV drive inverter produces.
The Hardell and Interphone studies led IARC to classify radiofrequency radiation as a possible carcinogen in 2011 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Hardell
IARC is now reviewing that classification since in 2018, two major rat studies proved cell phone radiation caused cancer in rats.
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/topics/cellphones
https://microwavenews.com/news-center/ramazzinis-belpoggi-interview
Also read How Money and Power Dominate RF Research at https://www.microwavenews.com
Hardell’s work was flawed the same way as the studies mentioned in that Nature article. It’s probably worth mentioning that Nature is a pretty respected scientific journal.
Typical cellphones put out about 200 milliwatts of power, and often less since they adjust their transmit power as needed to give a clear signal to the serving cell site. That power level is pretty small, and at a high frequency that doesn’t penetrate tissue very much. You end up with very low levels of heating at that’s it. This has been shown many times, I came even demonstrate it in my own lab. It simply isn’t dangerous.
If you’re working at a cell site, that’s a different story, but most people are far away from those sites and the energy density is much less, and not a problem. Even if you step in front of an active cell site antenna (they’re directional), you won’t feel anything or be harmed. I’ve done this before myself while working on commercial roofs. It’s not some kind of scary death ray.
If you go through all the supposed studies showing how bad this stuff is, they’re pretty much all flawed and disproven. The industry has funded some research, not because they are out to discredit everyone, but because if there is a real issue, they want to find out how to deal with it. I’ve been part of some of this work before. Proper research takes time and costs money, and the test equipment is very expensive. I have one piece of test gear, an HP spectrum analyzer, that was near $100,000 when it was in production. This kind of equipment is needed to make reliable measurements, but it’s not cheap, and you need to know how to use it properly to get good results.
Flawed studies are great for scaring people, especially people who don’t understand what they’re reading, but they aren’t “good science”, and they shouldn’t be relied on to draw conclusions about anything.
Bill
Bill, I find it amusing that you believe WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer based their RF 2B classification on what you claim is ''flawed work''.
In fact the California Department of Public Health cell phone advisory states that
Although the science is still evolving, some laboratory experiments and human health studies have suggested the possibility that long-term, high use of cell phones may be linked to certaintypesofcancerandotherhealth effects, including:
• brain cancer and tumors of the acoustic nerve (needed for hearing and maintaining balance) and salivary glands
• lower sperm counts and inactive or less mobile sperm
• headaches and effects on learning and memory, hearing, behavior, and sleep https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CCDPHP/DEODC/EHIB/CDPH%20Document%20Library/Cell-Phone-Guidance.pdf
For all the studies on EMF health effects, see the ORSAA.org database which at https://a037613.fmphost.com/fmi/webd/Research_Review_V4 lists 4632 studies and the number of those showing harm in various organs and systems (4632 studies in all).
To obtain this table, click on ''Effect categories'' and then ''Find summary totals''
So are we talking about EMF, radiofrequency radiation, or electromagnetic interference? Because those are all different things yet they seem to be being used interchangeably in this discussion.
EMI or high frequency transients are radiofrequencies piggybacking on the 60 hertz wave.
It's explained properly here by R Blank https://www.shieldyourbody.com/dirty-electricity/
He is the son of Martin Blank who was one of the world's top EMF scientists and author of Overpowered: The Dangers of Electromagnetic Radiation (Penguin/Random House)
https://www.physiology.columbia.edu/MartinBlank.html
Martin led this scientific appeal http://emfscientist.org
MARTIN BLANK earned PhDs in physical chemistry (1957) from Columbia University and in colloid science (1960) from University of Cambridge. He came to the department in 1959, retired as Associate Professor in 2011 and is now a Special Lecturer. His research has been on membranes, transport processes, excitation, and recently on health effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR). His book on health effects of EMR is due out at the end of 2013.
During his tenure, he had short-term appointments at 11 universities around the world, as well as at five industrial research labs and the US Office of Naval Research. He also organized many meetings, including two World Congresses on Electricity and Magnetism in Biology and Medicine, 4 Erice (Italy) Courses on Bioelectrochemistry, and he started the Gordon Research Conferences on Bioelectrochemistry. He has been Chairman of the Organic and Biological Division of the Electrochemical Society, President of the Bioelectrochemical Society, President of the Bioelectromagnetics Society, and has been on editorial boards of Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Bioelectrochemistry and Bioenergetics, Electromagnetic Medicine and Biology. He was editor of the 2009 special issue of Pathophysiology on EMR. He has published over 200 papers and reviews, as well as twelve edited books on electrical properties of biological systems, including the Proceedings of the First World Congress on "Electricity and Magnetism in Biology and Medicine", "Electromagnetic Fields: Biological Interactions and Mechanisms". He was one of the organizers of the online Bioinitiative Report, and edited the 2009 update in Pathophysiology.
Dr Joel Moskowitz of UC Berkeley keeps us up to date with the latest studies and news on EMF health effects : https://www.saferemr.com
The New Hampshire Commission Final Report on the Environmental and Health Effects of Evolving 5G Technology. notably recommended keeping 5G antennas be set back 1,456 ft (500 m) from residences, businesses, and schools
https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/statstudcomm/committees/1474/reports/5G%20final%20report.pdf
Also see Physicians for Safe Technology http://mdsafetech.org
Environmental Health Trust http://ehtrust.org
and Environmental Working Group :
https://www.ewg.org/research/radiofrequency-electromagnetic-fields-may-affect-heart-health-new-ewg-analysis-finds#:~:text=Research-,Radiofrequency%20electromagnetic%20fields%20may%20affect%20heart%20health%2C%20new%20EWG%20analysis,to%20a%20new%20EWG%20analysis.
For years I've been quietly telling my friends and acquaintances to never admit they get their news from the TV.
Youtube is modern day idiot box.
Maisonsaine you are wasting your time trying to discuss this with these people. No matter what information you bring forth to support your ideas they will never budge.
My favorite response by individuals confronted with new information that challenges their beliefs is that, "this information is incorrect because I follow the science." If we have learned anything in the past 3 years, its that the people who use this line clearly and unequivocally do not follow the science. They are the most obstinate, closed minded, anti science, pro censorship , antifree speech, antidebate, antifree press, anti human rights, period, full stop.
Arthur Firstenberg has written the epitome on the effects of electricity on the plants and animals, entitled "The Invisible Rainbow". At the end of the book he has over a 160 pages of footnotes citing scientific papers, research, published studies etc to back up his claims. 160 pages of footnotes!
So for all "follow the science" crowd out there, go ahead read up and follow the science.
Yes. Because the scientific community at large are not to be trusted, but a hand selected group of quacks are misunderstood geniuses who hold the truth that we obstinate fools are too stubborn to acknowledge. That's real science.
Nothing quacky about these experts who train MDs about EMF science :
https://emfconference2021.com/faculty/
They include Henry Lai, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Bioengineering, University of Washington (USA) - Editor Emeritus, Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine
Anthony B. Miller, MD, FRCP, FRCP (C), FFPH, FACE
Professor & Department Chair Emeritus, Preventive Medicine & Biostatistics Dalla Lama School of Public Health, University of Toronto (Canada)
Hillel Z. Baldwin, MD
Neurosurgeon - Carondelet Neurological Institute (USA) - Cochair EMFMC 2021
I looked at a couple of the papers by the first guy you cited, one Dr. Milham. To put it bluntly, they are a joke. I don't really have the motivation to inspect the work of every name you list, but suffice to say I'm not just going to assume they're legitimate because of titles and letters following their names.
In the June issue of the journal of the IEEE, Professor James C Lin explained just what is wrong with the international standards and guidelines that are supposed to protect us.
Lin reviewed the radiation limits recommended by three influential bodies – the FCC, and the revised limits of the ICNIRP and ICES.*
He concluded that the revised limits are not appropriate to adequately protect us from long-term exposure. ‘The revised RF exposure limits make allowances only to worry about heat with RF radiation,’ he said. ‘These limits are devised for restricting short-term heating by RF radiation and aim to prevent increased tissue temperatures. Thus, they are not applicable to long-term exposure at low levels.’
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10121536?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=are_we_safe&utm_term=2023-06-17
kyster,
You are defending scientific basis of a poster's remarks who thinks this constitutes a citation?
"References:
Cancer Definition and Examples – Biology Online Dictionary. Biology Articles, Tutorials & Dictionary Online."
This thread started in 2018. I only stumbled onto it today. I was about to write a comment asking for references to peer reviewed medical research regarding EMFs, etc. Then I saw Maisonsaine's post. So I did not post my comment.
I am now looking through those references.
His contribution is what was needed in this discussion 5 years ago.
Show real science to back up the claims and the discussion is worthwhile. That's what we need, not more pseudoscience. It appears (I haven't yet had a chance to look closely) Maisonsaine brings some sound science to the discussion. I welcome that and I am prepared to alter my views if the evidence warrants it.
Yep, Kyeser, Schopenhauer said it best : All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
I'm not trying to convinced, just help with solid info (I covered three EMF medical conferences so if have dozens of expert contacts. See who wrote and cosigned https://maisonsaine.ca/actualites/smart-meters-correcting-the-gross-misinformation
Arthur's book is a great history of EMF health effects but I don't agree we should stop using cell phones altogether. Mine is turned off most of the time and there are zero wireless devices in my house. My name is ANDRE FAUTEUX, by the way. See maisonsaine.ca/english
Thanks for your support.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Unfortunately untruths and misinformation can pass through the exact same steps.
I prefer data, large amounts if possible, with careful blinding and accounting for other factors. For example research on residences near power lines forgot to account for (a) herbicide use (b) lower income due to less desirable location. Those two factors are way bigger than the supposed EMF effects.
Now we are back to the nonsense about smart meters? If GBA becomes a repository of junk science it will be worthless as a resource.
If there are reasoned responses to address the junk science, then GBA remains a valuable resource.
Typical smart meters are in the 900MHz band, sometimes 2.4GHz. The 900MHz band used to have lots of cordless telephones (and probably still does), not cell phones, CORDLESS telephones -- remember those? :-D no one had an issue with those. Transmiters in the 900MHz band tend to be 1 watt max, and they don't operate all the time, they only run when data is sent. Very low power levels, and not constantly on. This isn't a big deal. I expect people have been exposed to higher average field strengths from broadcast transmitters for decades and never thought about it.
Regarding the truth and stages, we're not talking about some new "truth" here, we're talking about people pushing ideas that contradict actual established and demonstrable scientific facts. This is like going around saying you discovered that 1+1 = 3. Are we going to debate that and then eventually accept it as fact? No, we can recognize it's just wrong. That's what we have here with this "junk science". There are three stages to this too: Someone reads something, doesn't understand it, but thinks it sounds scary. Second, they post it somewhere where other like-minded people read it and agree it sounds scary! Third, they think they have the truth, and everyone else is a conspiracy financed by "big corporate money". Sounds familiar right? All those people are still wrong, just because they got together doesn't mean they magically became right, they're just all being wrong together. That's all this is, with a little bit of showmanship thrown in by a few people marketing magical cures to the imagined problems.
Bill
Bill,
I'm indebted to you for persevering.
We have a saying in the sciences, especially engineering (and probably physics too): "If it can't be measured, it doesn't exist". Things need to be quantifiable. You list some, presumably cherry picked, medical people, but no one from the engineering side that actually understand the "electrical gizmos", for lack of a better term. This stuff is actually my field, and I work with power systems professionally, and have real test equipment to measure this stuff. There simply is NOT an issue with "dirty electricity". There is very nearly no energy content in the power waveform at the frequencies people seem to be worried about. I've shown some of that, and could show more, but it takes a while to set the equipment up to make a measurement. The stuff I posted last night I could do quickly. I've done much more complex measurements at projects at work on numerous commercial sites and NONE of those sites show ANY of the issues the "dirty electricity" people worry about. There's nothing there, it's just quack science, and demonstrably so. If there is no energy there, and it's easy to show that there really isn't, then there is nothing there that can "do" anything to anyone, regardless of what anyone might claim.
You're mixing that up with RF exposure, from things like cell phones and wifi, and probably other things. RF CAN cause problems, that is a KNOWN issue, but it's all about the energy density involved -- frequency doesn't really matter when you get up high enough that biological organisms can't perceive it (anything kHz or higher), and not so high that you get up into the range of ionizing radiation (X rays, etc.). Ionizing radiation breaks chemical bonds. That's why you need protection from that. You don't have that stuff in normal enviornments though, certainly not from your cellphone or power outlet. Lower frequencies are usually an issue with flashing lights, and can induce seizures in some people. Very high energy levels of these lower (by "lower" I mean sub-kHz range) frequencies can mess with brain activity too, when targeted at specific parts of the brain. That's all known too.
Everything in the middle is NON-ionizing radiation, and can heat things. Microwave ovens work like this, operating at around 2.4GHz and resonating the -OH molecular group to cause heating via resonance in the stuff you're cooking. A typical microwave oven is 700+ watts, and that energy is almost entirely confined to the very small area inside that microwave oven. The energy density is thus very high. The original wifi band was/is also around 2.4GHz, which is why microwave ovens could sometimes cause interference. The difference is wifi operates in the hundreds of milliwatts range, and over larger areas and distances, resulting in much, much lower energy densities, so low in fact that you can't perceive any heating and probably wouldn't even be able to make such a measurement without some very sensitive equipment. We use the unit dBm for these signals, with 0 dBm equal to one milliwatt. Some wifi devices can report received signal strengths, and a quick Google search shows -60 dBm is considered a good level of signal. -60 dBm is one millionth of a milliwatt, so 0.000 000 001 watts. You're just not going to hurt anything with that teensy amount of energy.
Cell phones right up next to you at full 200mW power could potentially expose you to about 33 mW or so near your head, so about + 14-15 dBm or so, 0.033 watts. Why that specific fraction? I'm making an assumption that the cellphone is using an omnidirectional antenna with a radiation pattern shaped like a donut with the phone in the donut's hole. I'm assuming your head will intercept about 1/6 of that donut, with the rest of the signal going in other directions. A quick Google search says a typical paraffin wax candle puts out about 80 watts of heat (which suprised me, I would not have expected that much), so that cellphone is exposing you to about 0.04% of the energy you'd get from a single candle. If we use the dB scale, and define a new meaning for the unit dBC (dB relative to one candle), that cell phone is about -34 dBC. Not much energy, not enough to really hurt you any.
Where RF exposure is an issue is up close to broadcast towers, or standing right next to a cell site antenna (not next to the fence around the base of the tower, but standing up the tower, right in front of one of the sectoral antennas). You can have a few kW worth of effective radiated power there, because the energy DENSITY is so high when you're that close to the antenna. Down at ground level, the signal has spread out and that energy density drops off considerably, by way of the inverse square law, which can be thought of as a fancy way of saying "it drops off really fast as you get farther away, and really, really fast as you keep going farther out".
California, BTW, doesn't have a great history with their regulatory bodies. Proposition 65 comes to mind, which is put on pretty much everything just to avoid litigation, regardless of actual risk or exposure. RF exposure is regulated at the federal level, by the FCC. I'm quite familiar with these limits as I have to work with them at work. You can argue about the limits and what they are, but they are where they are for a reason. Some will probably think they should be lower, others will be equally convincing that they could safely be raised higher.
The thing to remember here is that RF and RFI, EMF, EMI, are not all the same thing. To use those terms interchangeably implies a lack of understanding of what those things are. Everyone lives within the Earth's naturally occuring EMF, for example, and that EMF protects us from a lot of nasty radiation the Sun belches out at us. EMI is interference cause by electromagnetic fields. RFI is the same but from RF fields. RF is just "Radio Frequency", which technically includes electromagnetic and electrostatic fields at right angles to each other. A quick way to tell if an author is putting out quack stuff is if they mix up those terms over and over again, so you know it's a lack of understanding and not just a typo. Exposure to high level RF fields CAN be an issue, that's known -- but you won't be exposed to RF fields anywhere near the problem levels in normal residential and commercial structures. You've mixed up the "dirty electricity" nonsense with the real issue of RF exposure, but are then greatly overestimating the demonstrated risk of very low level RF fields.
Bill
This post is not a criticism of the poster "maisonsaine" he is trying to help the others posting what I consider from the other people irrelevant information and misdirection to others.
I see a lot of opinions posted on this subject. However I do not see any actual test data. If you have no data as was submitted by Mr. Windheim then you have no basis to make any comment that carries any validity. I know I will get a lot hate mail on this position, but do you really have any facts and test results to denigrate any contribution of others? Would you turn on one of your own experts if they brought an issue such as this to light? Try doing your own tests and post your data for others to see.
Bill
Buzzer,
"Try doing your own tests and post your data for others to see."
Can you expand a bit on what statistically useful tests we as designers and builders, not medical researchers, could do that would show that any of the hazards - dirty electricity, RF, RMI, EMF, EMI - were having adverse effects on human health? That's a big part of the problem: people experiencing symptoms and ascribing them to something they have no good reason to believe has caused them.
Surely if the last few years have taught us anything it's that the "do your own research" crowd get things profoundly wrong, and are easily manipulated.
The science and international policies regarding EMFs are all explained here :
https://ehtrust.org/policy/international-policy-actions-on-wireless/
Over and out!
This post is not a criticism of the poster "maisonsaine" he is trying to help the others posting what I consider from the other people irrelevant information and misdirection to others.
I see a lot of opinions posted on this subject. However I do not see any actual test data. If you have no data as was submitted by Mr. Windheim then you have no basis to make any comment that carries any validity. I know I will get a lot hate mail on this position, but do you really have any facts and test results to denigrate any contribution of others? Would you turn on one of your own experts if they brought an issue such as this to light? Try doing your own tests and post your data for others to see.
I had my panel open so for giggles I chucked a current clamp onto the power feed of my mini split and cranked it full power (3 zone, ~2kW). Older unit so power factor correction wasn't that great on it but none the less I had too zoom in to see much noise outside of the 60Hz line current. Except for a couple of harmonics of 60hz there was nothing in the spectrum until the switching frequency of the inverter. Even there the energy was so small that I had to zoom in a fair bit to see it.
Outside of that there was near ZERO high frequency signals. Maybe fancier equipment would have picked up something up that would be so weak it would be barely measurable. There was nothing there that would radiate any measurable amount of RF.
You can learn more about the science of Dirty Electricity and Building Biology here: https://buildingbiologyinstitute.org/course/electromagnetic-radiation/
Dirty electricity is created by switch mode power supplies SMPS, pulse wide modulators PWMs and variable frequency drive motors as found in HVAC and pool equipment. It is also called a high frequency voltage transient or HFVT. It is a conducted emission in the kHz range that radiates from the conductor.
The sad part is that anybody can get a .org registration, you don't even have to be a non profit.
Peddling nonsense unfortunately is the bane of modern internet, the content there is fluff to sell courses.
As Bill said earlier there is no such thing as dirty electricity. There is conducted and radiated emissions. All those are very tightly regulated, no appliance sold certified for sale in North America will produce anything that would not require very high precision lab grade instruments to even measure right on the conductor. A couple of feet away, they are bellow noise floor.
I just joined and would like to find GBAs list of scientific advisors and Board of Directors. Can you supply a link for me? Thank you kindly, EMRS.
EMRS,
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/about-us
https://www.taunton.com/about-taunton/
Those switch mode power supplies, PWM modulators, and variable frequency drives (VFDs), also all include filters to deal with the noise they generate, and those filters are required by regulatory agencies. I posted a picture earlier of some of the filter components in a basic switch power supply, and it's a basic supply -- not some fancy extra expensive premium model. The simple fact is that GOOD filtering is ALREADY included in ALL of those devices, so the noise is NOT sent back out on the line. The filters in those devices are better than the typical overpriced plug-in filters you sometimes see sold to deal with "dirty electricity", and they're more effective too because they are located right at the source.
You also don't get much radiation from the conductor in the kHz range, since the conductor is too small as a fraction of a wavelength relative to the frequency in question. 20kHz, for example, is a wavelength of a bit shy of 50,000 feet. You can look into "radiation efficiency" of antennas for some more info about how this works.
For Buzzer: No one here is being disrespectful to anyone. We can argue about an idea without making it personal. Regarding maisonaine specifically, I don't see him criticising anyone here, and I didn't criticize him, either. The discussion has all been about the specific issues he brought up, with him presenting his reasoning and others here theirs. That's a good discussion, not an attack.
Regarding what I've posted specifically, a lot of it is explanation of terms and physical properties of equipment. I don't need to cite references for things like 1+1=2. The rest is explaining concepts, for the most part. Anyone reading this is free to go research any of those things and see for themselves what I'm talking about. I did post pictures of an example of the filtering components in a basic switching power supply, and I could do the same for a picture anyone here posts of any other supply. I also posted an actual measurement I made myself, of the power waveform very close to the switching power supply that was running at the time. You can clearly see the AC line waveform is pretty clean, despite that switching power supply running only a few feet away.
The point is that basic explanations, and relatively simple measurements, clearly show that "dirty electricity" isn't a "thing". Others can talk about the effects electromagnetic radiation may or may not have, but that's not my argument: my argument here is that there just isn't any significant amount of energy radiated from any of these things. It's easy to measure that there is very nearly no energy content in the ranges these people are concerned about, making the concerns about what it might do irrelevant. If the cause of the alleged problem is not present, than that supposed cause can obviously not actually be causing that alleged problem.
Bill
Here's a story in the NY Times, which I believe is a reputable source, about how the concern over health hazards associated with 5G began as a Russian disinformation campaign to try to prevent the US from achieving technological dominance.
Quote:
“It’s economic warfare,” Ryan Fox, chief operating officer of New Knowledge, a technology firm that tracks disinformation, said in an interview. “Russia doesn’t have a good 5G play, so it tries to undermine and discredit ours.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-health-russia.html
First I never agreed to articulate what DE actually was or was not. We are talking about radiated and the radiated portion of conducted emissions. These emissions are measured at voltage versus frequency. All above 60 Hz.
With the advent of computers and other digital devices becoming popular, the FCC
realized that it was necessary to impose limits on the electromagnetic emissions of these
devices in order to minimize the potential that they would interfere with radio and wire
communications. As a result the FCC set limits on the radiated and conducted emissions of
digital devices. Digital devices are defined by the FCC as any unintentional radiator (device
or system) that generates and uses timing pulses at a rate in excess of 9000 pulses (cycles)
per second and uses digital techniques. All electronic devices with digital circuitry and
a clock signal in excess of 9 kHz are covered under this rule, although there are a few
exceptions.
The law makes it illegal to market digital devices that have not had their conducted
and radiated emissions measured and verified to be within the limits set for by the FCC
regulations. This means that digital devices that have not been measured to pass the
requirements can not be sold, marketed, shipped, or even be offered for sale.
Thus it is important that every unit that a company produces is FCC compliant.
Although the FCC does not test each and every module, they do perform random tests on
products and if a single unit fails to comply, the entire product line can be recalled.
The FCC has different sets of regulations for different types of digital devices.
Devices that are marketed for use in commercial, industrial or business environments are
classified as Class A digital devices. Devices that are marketed for us in residential
environments, notwithstanding their use in commercial, industrial, or business environments
are classified as Class B digital devices. In general the regulations for Class B devices are
more stringent than those for Class A devices. This is because in general digital devices
are in closer proximity in residential environments, and the owners of the devices are less
likely to have the abilities and or resources to correct potential problems. The following
table shows a comparison of the Class A and Class B conducted emissions limits, where you
can clearly see that the regulation for Class B devices are more strict than those for Class A
devices. A comparison for radiated emissions will be shown later. Personal computers are
a subcategory of Class B devices and are regulated more strictly than other digital devices.
Computer manufacturers must test their devices and submit their test results to the FCC. No
other digital devices require that test data be sent to the FCC, rather the manufacturer is
expected to test their own devices to be sure they are electromagnetically compatible and the
FCC will police the industry through testing of random product samples.
Here are the conducted specs from the FCC itself. Since a Mini Split operates at greater than 9 KHz it is to be subjected to this rule. As you noticed in the original post there is a lot of signals above 250 Microvolts.
The example provided clearly demonstrates that the Mini Split in this example is in clear violation. It is well studied that conducted emissions greater than 2KHz, do radiate in the air at 90 Degrees in the direction of the wire and is absorbed by skin. It is all documented here. https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Bioelectricity-Electrical-Stimulation-Electropathology/dp/0387984070/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1687122733&sr=1-2
So health effects from Conducted Emissions for devices shown in the example submitted are real.
There is more explanation of this here: https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/understanding-electromagnetic-compatibility-standards-for-switch-mode-power-supplies#:~:text=CISPR%20Class%20B%203%2DMeter%20Radiated%20EMI%20Limit&text=As%20shown%2C%20FCC%20conducted%20emission,measuring%20distance%20of%203%20meters.
This is all usually referred to as EMC, ElectroMagnetic Compatibility testing. It's commonly done, and has been for some time, long before computers and the like were common (although I think they have revised things a few times since then). The issue though as originally to minimize interference between devices, akin to "We don't want that telephone to interfere with TV reception". Residential settings were/are more likely to have the devices in closer proximity to one another, which is why class B is more stringent. The original concern wasn't with the proximity to people.
Note also the difference between "conducted" and "radiated" limits, with "radiated" being much lower. Conducted junk on the line does NOT all radiate out. Yes, you get some, but not a lot, and much less radiates out than is actually conducted down the wire. Part of that is the nature of electricity and the normally parallel conductor paths, which help to cancel some of the field. These two wires in close proximity (think NMB "Romex" cable) act as a sort of transmission line, and I mean that in the RF sense, not the powerline sense. Since you have current moving in opposite directions in the two wires, but nearly equal in amplitude, most of the radiated field is cancelled out. In theory, you have perfect field cancellation, but in reality, it doesn't quite work that way. If you really want to help the wiring to cancel more of the field, you want "twisted pair" wiring. Look inside a cat5 / cat6 network cable, you'll see tightly twisted pairs. They're twisted to reject interference, but the same process works in reverse too, limiting how much of a field surrounds the pair.
In practice though, two things I have seen:
1- Actual conducted junk coming out of electronic stuff on the line tends to be a LOT less than the FCC limits. I HAVE measured this, because it's something we do check for at work in the facilities I consult on. I have pretty fancy measuring equipment at my disposal too when needed. The simple fact is that the power wiring itself is pretty lossy at higher frequencies due to the dielectric (insulation) materials used and the way the wire is manufactured and installed.
2- I HAVE seen non-compliant no-name import stuff that generates a bunch of noise. I have heard about ultra cheapo no-name computer power supplies that have omitted the required filtering components too (there will be spots on the PC board for the parts, but they're not there, and the place they'd be has been bypassed). I am 100% behind you in any efforts to try to keep that noncompliant junk product stuff off the market.
BTW, the FCC is woefully understaffed to do much in the way of enforcement these days. I would not count on them catching anything without some help. If you find a noncompliant product, report it. As far as I know, the FCC themselves don't actually do any random testing of products. The way the EMC compliance process normally works is that you, as the manufacturer, submit your product to an accepted lab to test your gizmo. The lab issues a report, which you send to the FCC for approval. You then get an FCC ID # for your product, which you are supposed to list in the documentation with the product. The actual testing is pretty much entirely between the manfucturer and the third party lab, the FCC is more like a record keeping agency. The FCC does have some field crews that can do testing for broadcast transmitters and things like that, but I don't know if they actually have anything to test smaller things like plug-in appliances.
Bill
To BILL WICHERS;
Interesting reply, but you say you have seen data and have access to equipment.
1. You have presented no data to contradict as was presented back in 2018. You only have refences and opinions. This means very little as coming from an expert member?
2. This whole discussion is about whether a mini split is an efficient appliance and saves energy. It might to the utility company which is trying to reduce demand for current, but with the smart meter in the circuit, it is not going to save on a residential power bill because they smart meter now measuring V/A including the transient voltages created by the mini split circuit as shown in the 2018 example. This might have worked with old analog meters (which only measured current) but not with smart meters in the circuit measuring Volt/Amps.
3. Does this glib generality and accusation extend all topics covered by GBA. Are you willing to learn or do you already have all the knowledge there is on this subject?
4. Based on your exchanges over a 5 year period you have not presented any data and I would never ask for your expert opinion on anything or much less hire you for anything.
I am done participating further on this subject unless you have a real data to cite.
Bill
Buzzer,
This is a contentious subject and it's understandable that you feel strongly about it, but if you want to continue engaging in discussions here on GBA, I suggest you read the terms of service, or you won't be here long.
Most of what I've said is explanations of concepts and terms, similar to what you'd get in a classroom or professional seminar. Sometimes mistakenly using certain terminology can convey a meaning that wasn't intended, which is sometimes by mistake, but also sometimes done on purposes -- notably by people pushing "solutions" to non-problems, but also by green energy people trying to make their stuff look better, or something else to look worse. Either way, inaccurate information that is misleading does not help anyone. I did post a basic measurement I made, and also a picture of a typical switching power supply along with notes showing some of the filtering components that are there specifically to filter out exactly what people are worried about. This is a Q+A style forum, not a research paper, so it's cumbersome to try to cite every reference to anything. I try to provide sufficient information that if someone desires, they can go research things themselves with a good starting point.
Minisplits are efficient not because they use switching power supplies, but because they are heat pumps, moving heat instead of making it from scratch. This makes heat pumps use less input energy per output BTU compared to electric resistance heat, and they often cost less to operate compared to natural gas or oil fired heaters for the same reason. The primary thing making them "efficient" though is that they are heat pumps. The power supply is not the main concern in that case. The "efficiency" here is in relationship to total energy consumed to make the useful product of heat.
Regarding smart meters, yes, they do measure kw. They also measure kva. Electricity is sold in units of kw/h, kilowatt hours, and you can see that if you look in the "rate book" for any utility, which should be on file with your local state agency that regulates the electric industry for your state. KW/h are a unit of what is called "real power" meaning it does work, moving a mass through distance and generation heat, or moving heat. That's basic physicals. KVA is, in the engineering world (I'm an EE, BTW), known as a "reactive power", which is sometimes called "imaginary power". Reactive power does no useful work, but DOES cause losses, especially in wiring. The different between those two is known as the "power factor", expressed as a unitless number from 0 to 1, and said to be "leading" if the current is drawn BEFORE the voltage on the sinewave peaks, or "lagging" if the current is drawn AFTER the voltage on the sinewave peaks. "Current" means amperes here. Very poor power factors increase system losses, so the utilities do want to keep power factors up near 1 as much as possible for maximum efficiency of their systems. In the commercial world, where I normally work, the utilities will FINE you if your power factor gets too bad, with "too bad" usually 0.85 or below. These fines are also detailed in the rate book. As far as I know, no utilities are currently using power factor as part of the residential billing, but the smart meters ARE capable of that. Large commercial services have been subject to power factor penalaties for decades, which is why industrial customers have to install power factor correction (usually capacitors) to deal with that problem if they have it.
Digital meters typical work by sampling both the voltage and current (amps) waveforms simultaneously with analog to digital converters. A number of samples is needed over each cycle. From that information, it's possible to calculate both the kwh and the kva being drawn by the load. Electricity is still billed based on kwh though, not on kva, so any transients don't really effect the kwh reading. To visualize what kwh are, imagine two sinewaves superimposed on one another, but slightly shifted left or right so that they aren't in phase (lined up) with each other. One sinewave is the voltage, the other the current in amperes. If the current is to the right of the voltage, that's "lagging" power factor. If the current is to the left of the voltage, that's "leading" power factor. Kwh is the integral of the area under BOTH sinewaves in the area contained by BOTH sinewaves. Hopefully that makes sense, it would be easier with a drawing which I can post if you ask (I have to draw it, scan it, and post it). Smart meters and analog meters are both measuring kwh for billing purposes, it's just that smart meters have the capability of providing additional information. As I mentioned, I'm not aware of any utilities currently using that "other" information for billing purposes, but they could potentially in the future.
Regarding power factor, since I brought it up, most switching power supplies these days are power factor corrected to better than 0.9, often much better (I've see 0.95 to 0.99 or so). For this, I can provide links to two documents with more information:
https://www.cui.com/catalog/resource/power-factor
and
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019R1782&from=es
Note that CUI is a manufacturer of switching power supplies.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'glib generality' when we're trying to talk about specific points. I've shown some measurements, a pic of a power supply, lots of explanation and some links to other documents with additional info. DC also posted some links to peer reviews disputing some of the links promoting "dirty electricity" as an issue too.
I try to educate people on this kind of stuff so that they can better understand what is going on, and I try to do it in a clear way. I don't have any agenda here other than trying to help everyone to have a better understanding of these things. Few here ever make anything personal, and that includes other posters in this very thread that are obviously on the other side of this issue. I have over two decades worth of experience working on critical power systems, dealing with things like line harmonics and power factor, among other things, and offer my experience to other posters here for free to try to help them improve their own systems.
Bill
Can we stop feeding the trolls now?
No amount of reason or logic will ever convince them they are wrong.
Never Wrestle with a Pig. You Both Get Dirty and the Pig Likes It.
Walta
I'm not sure they're trolls. Some people really are worried about this stuff, so it makes sense to discuss it. I don't fault anyone for being concerned, I just try to explain why it's not an issue.
I did take some measurements in FFT mode (to show the strength of the harmonic frequencies) today, since I was setup for a similar measurement for other purposes. This was taken in the same "one outlet over" on my bench from that still-operating switching power supply I mentioned in my earlier post. I've included pics of the 3rd (180Hz), 5th (300Hz), 7th (420Hz), and 9th (540Hz) harmonics, which is usually as far out as we bother to measure (if even that far). I've also shown the 15th harmonic (900Hz), which is the highest order harmonic that I can decertain from the noise. I've shown up around 20kHz too, because an earlier poster said that's a cancer-causing frequency. There is no energy component at 20kHz visible with this test setup (which is good up to about 100kHz per the documentation for the probe I'm using, although it's probably actually useful much higher than that).
The 15th harmonic is down 48dB relative to the fundamental here, which is about 0.00158% of the energy content (which is what really matters), or about 251 times less by voltage. The third harmonic is down 32.4dB, which is 0.05% of the energy content, or about 44.7 times less by voltage. Up at 20kHz, there is no discernible "spike" at all, and the measurements show on the right of the graph are not useful, since there is no reference and nothing for my equipment to measure (just random noise that is inherent to the measuring equipment and not anything to do with the line).
Remember that this is very close (less than 10 feet of wire) away from that switching power supply, that was running the entire time -- with no enclosure, BTW -- and loaded.
Bill
The rest of the pics of the measurements, since it will only let me put five attachments per post.
I've also included one time domain measurement of the sinewave on the utility line, showing that it's pretty clean. There is no special filtering or anything going on, either, this stuff is all just plugged into regular outlets on my test bench.
Bill
Thank you everyone for continuing to add to this important thread. I was part of the 2018 discussion and the issues discussed have moved from theoretical to real for me, as my partner became permanently electrohypersensitive in 2019 after moving into the 'forever home' I constructed with my own hands, with lots of guidance from GBA. Electrosensitivity is real, it is not psychosomatic, it is not due to suggestion. It is stultifying and has led to four years of being essentially housebound due to the overabundance of RF devices and infrastructure in the world.
The reason Bill Wichers does not see the human-injurious portions of microsurge/DE is not due to technique or instrument, but perhaps that what is sought is probably too small to be easily noticed. DE measurement starts with a 60 Hz high pass filter, then looks at what remains, starting at the 50th harmonic (about 3 kHz) up to a few hundred kHz. The 20 kHz value is usual, but 16 kHz, 30 kHz and similar first harmonics are very common too. Spikes of a few tens of *millivolts* are enough to elicit symptoms, and clearing those spikes lead to relief of symptoms. The folks trained as EEs or physicists might snort derisively at how such puny energies could not possibly cause any negative reaction and then make some random comparative statement to a 'safe' phenomenon involving millivolts. Human biology is complicated, far more complex and nuanced than many realize. I personally witness every day the effects of small energies upon a person whose biology is caught up in a PTSD-like state of hypervigilance --- such as reacting with an instant icepick headache from individual aircraft high in the sky.
As one can never predict one's future path, it is now *I* who has trained as a Building Biologist, and am now a colleague to Mr. Windheim, maker of the Fujitsu DE video that features prominently in this thread. Mr. Windheim has seen thousands of clients and many people have gotten their health back, avoided having to sell their homes and have high praise for him. There is no scam, there is no subterfuge, the measurement instruments are high quality gaussmeters, oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers.
Although not exclusively from 'green technologies', much of the EMF over-exposure that leads to the onset of hyper-reactivity stems from mandated technologies lauded by GBA (LEDs, CFLs, mini-splits, variable-speed pumps/motors, Solar PV, dimmer switches and the like). In a group of 100 people, perhaps 1-3 of them will exhibit electrical sensitivity (according to population surveys in Austria, Sweden, and a few other nations). People in this thread are quick to require science and evidence that EMF hazards really exist, but do not equally demand that particular devices/technologies prove themselves with long term health studies with a large enough population to encompass that small sensitive population percentage. Yet will support mandates that everyone must follow. Likely, there will be a collective shrug that "these products have been out in the field for years and no one is ill and no one is complaining but scammers, whiners, and crazies".
We cannot accurately predict who is apt to develop environmental sensitivities (to chemicals, EMFs, foods, etc.), but likely someone you know does actually have such a sensitivity yet is unaware of the source of their troubles as long as experts, decision-makers and people in authority remain both strident and ignorant on such topics.
kjginma,
Continuing to support your partner's belief that single passing airplanes are causing their symptoms is not going them any kindness. It is precluding them from finding out what the real source of their illness is.
Foil hat time again
Walta