Static electric, living in a Faraday cage?

[Jilly]

Not sure if I'm going bonkers here. Our house is small 60 x 10m  and I can't stand the WiFi being on, I seem to get an odd  pressure headache and can't seem to think straight. I understand elementary physics and exponential decay, so I'm trying not to sit near the modem/router, and my partner thought I was a bit neurotic(!) to begin with, but we also have noticed a funny buzzing when we touch some light switches, not quite a static shock and also the computer does it too and it seems to stop when you wear rubber shoes. 

 

I'll speak to the electrician when I see him, it can't be serious or it would trip the RCD, but I'm wracking my brains and straying into hippy stuff. Could it be anything to do with the ring main going into the floor around the aluminium window frames. The electrician did it for ease for himself, so I asked for a floor plug in the corner as the wires were there .

We've got loads of foil backed insulation in the walls and ceilings. We also get a pretty poor phone reception which improves when you step outside the building.

 

Is this just the usual self builder overthinking...?

[Ajn]

This sounds a bit serious. Assume it is a new build with a new supply from the DNO. What earth system have they provided? It should tell you on a label in the incomming cabinet where your meter would be. A number of questions need to be asked as it sounds as you have a voltage on your internal earth, that is assuming you have metal faceplates on your light switches and not some high static plastic stuff?

[SteamyTea]

5 hours ago, Jilly said:

Is this just the usual self builder overthinking

Yes.

 

If you have LED lighting, you may find some of the drivers a bit 'buzzy'.

 

[Radian]

Foil backed insulation and low E glass can massively attenuate RF. That's to be expected. But when you describe a buzzing when touching light switches, that's odd - unless they are touch switches - in which case you will feel a tiny AC leakage current which is part of their design. I'd describe it as being more like feeling a velvety texture when you dab a finger on the metal parts. A similar leakage current will be created by certain electronic equipment in their power supplies. These have capacitor filters leaking a little current from live to earth so if your earths are not properly bonded you may get "that felling" from touching the metal parts. This ought to be investigated. With great respect I would say you may have a genuine electrical issue but may be incorrectly linking the headaches and thinking issues with the electrical situation. There are a variety of other well known causes for these kind of symptoms.

[Temp]

6 hours ago, Jilly said:

Not sure if I'm going bonkers here. Our house is small 60 x 10m  and I can't stand the WiFi being on, I seem to get an odd  pressure headache and can't seem to think straight. I understand elementary physics and exponential decay, so I'm trying not to sit near the modem/router, and my partner thought I was a bit neurotic(!) to begin with, but we also have noticed a funny buzzing when we touch some light switches, not quite a static shock and also the computer does it too and it seems to stop when you wear rubber shoes. 

 

I'll speak to the electrician when I see him, it can't be serious or it would trip the RCD, but I'm wracking my brains and straying into hippy stuff. Could it be anything to do with the ring main going into the floor around the aluminium window frames. The electrician did it for ease for himself, so I asked for a floor plug in the corner as the wires were there .

We've got loads of foil backed insulation in the walls and ceilings. We also get a pretty poor phone reception which improves when you step outside the building.

 

Is this just the usual self builder overthinking...?

 

You mention several different things ..

 

A slight tingling when touching metal switch plates or similar cab be due to a bad earth connection. First job I ever had age 16 was to go to a school with an electrician where teachers were reporting shocis from light switches. There was a faulty earth at the consumer unit. Instead of being  connected to earth the earth wire was effectively floating. It runs in parallel with the live and can pick up quite a voltage. 

 

Some double insulated devices (these have no earth) can produce a similar effect. Some laptops for example.

 

Foil backed insulation will definitly block phone reception. It can also block TV signals from reaching loft mounted aerials. 

 

As for the WiFi causing headache... Many people have made similar claims however if that was true they would be able to tell if a WiFi router was on or off under laboratory conditions. For example when they can't see if the lights are on.  For many years a man called James Randi offered a $1m prize if someone could demonstrate that they could demonstrate such an ability. I'm not saying wifi is definitly harmless but I've not heard of anyone that can detect it via a headache or any other way under lab conditions. 

[Temp]

https://www.livescience.com/52978-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-cause-unclear.html

 

Quote

... scientifically controlled tests in which people were exposed to electromagnetic signals but were not told when the signals were turned on or off overwhelmingly showed that study participants were unable to determine when the signals were present, according to a 2009 review of 46 such studies published in the journal Bioelectromagnetics

.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Temp

[ProDave]

I know someone who cannot use LED lights, it gives her a migraine.  I think the reason for this is most LED lights are not actually a constant steady light (no technical reason why they could not be) but instead a high frequency pulsed light.  It's all to do with the way the drivers are designed.  It is that high frequency flashing (in effect) of the lighting that triggers her headaches.

 

Her solution was, when halogen lamps were being phased out, she bought in bulk so now has a cupboard full of them to last the rest of her life. (so she hopes)

[SteamyTea]

25 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I know someone who cannot use LED lights

When higher power LEDs started to become a 'thing', I, like many people that had had their cataracts replaced with shiny new acrylic lenses, found them quite painful. Now they put better coatings/filters/diffusers on them, they are not quite so bad.

Been told the earlier ones were 'more blue lights' and considering most misted up lenses are caused by UV light, this group of people could be more susceptible to that part of the spectrum.

The headaches brought on by excess brightness is because the iris is forced to contract more than is natural, and then we screw our eyelids up, in the best Wilfred Pickles impression we can.  So muscle pain, not magic piskeys caused by EMR at special frequencies in the air.

 

Over at the other place, there is an architect who claims, his wife claims, that she knows when he has the WiFi on in their office as she gets a headache. Having spent a couple of hours listening to him, and 3 con men, trying to convince themselves that both thier bio digestor and hydrogen fuel cell broke the known laws of physics, and PV could never pay back the embodied energy involved in its manufacture, I had a headache.

Humans have always been bathed in EMFs, even when we sat around the campfire.

Edited May 21, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Temp]

6 hours ago, ProDave said:

I know someone who cannot use LED lights, it gives her a migraine.  I think the reason for this is most LED lights are not actually a constant steady light (no technical reason why they could not be) but instead a high frequency pulsed light.  It's all to do with the way the drivers are designed.  It is that high frequency flashing (in effect) of the lighting that triggers her headaches.

 

Her solution was, when halogen lamps were being phased out, she bought in bulk so now has a cupboard full of them to last the rest of her life. (so she hopes)

 

Ive had that issue with some cheap LED. They flicker badly especially when dimmed even on known good dimmers. Its particularly bad if you observe a fitting with multiple bulbs out of your peripheral vision which evolved to respond better to fast moving predators. It can stop when you look at the lamp directly with central vision.

 

I found the problem went away when I switched to a well known brand like Philips.

 

 

[Jilly]

Thank you for your comments. The electrician already thinks I overthink so he will love this one. 

 

However, just to overthink a little more, if phone reception is blocked by the foil in the insulation, is it not therefore possible that the WiFi is internally reflected in the building which could account for my real or imaginary symptoms...?   

 

 

 

[Temp]

11 hours ago, Jilly said:

However, just to overthink a little more, if phone reception is blocked by the foil in the insulation, is it not therefore possible that the WiFi is internally reflected in the building which could account for my real or imaginary symptoms...?   

 

 

I would say no. Yes foil can reflect signals but its very unlikely to make the overall signal strength any higher. To do that you need a carefully designed aerial (take a look at a TV aerial, they aren't just flat bits of foil). Even then they make the signal stronger in one direction but at the expense of a reduced signal strength in every other direction.