Lisa asked Building Wellness to conduct an EMF and RF assessment of her home, as she wanted to know whether or not the field levels were safe for her young children. While they did not have any health concerns, she wanted peace of mind regarding their home environment. Her main query was whether or not her home was being affected by a large transformer located on a power pole on the opposite side of the street.

As Lisa wished to ensure safe long term magnetic field and radio frequency exposure for her family, precautionary building biology guidelines were used to evaluate the readings obtained at her home. Under these guidelines, magnetic field levels in excess of 1mG and radio frequency levels in excess of 10uW/m2 are considered to be of severe concern. Hence, it is recommended that remediation be undertaken as soon as possible.

Test Results

While the magnetic field levels were less than 1mG in her infant daughter's room, the radio frequency levels  exceeded 10uW/m2 due to the presence of a DECT cordless phone on the bench in the kitchen outside the baby's room.

In her son's room, which was beside  the home office, the magnetic field levels exceeded 1mG due to a large field on a water pipe in the ground outside the wall of his room.  When the wireless internet modem in the office was turned on, the radio frequency levels in his room were up to 260uW/m2. When the modem was turned off, radio frequency levels in his room were less than 0.5uW/m2.

In the master bedroom, magnetic field levels exceeded 4mG at the pillow positions due to the presence of the same water pipe that had caused elevated levels in her son's room.

The transformer which had been of concern to Lisa was found to not be having any influence on the magnetic field levels in her home. 

 Recommendations

Lisa was advised to have an electrician investigate and remediate the cause of the high current on the water pipe along the side of the house. It was also recommended that she replace the DECT phone and wireless modem with corded appliances.

Outcomes

The above recommendations were implemented in full. The electrician changed the earthing of the electricity supply in the house so that the pipe outside the bedrooms was no longer affected by high magnetic fields. The use of wired electronic devices (with the exception of occassional mobile phone use) means that the radio frequency levels in the home are generally within the precautionary guideline. Lisa now has peace of mind with respect to the EMR environment within her home.