About the Book

A definitive guide to power-frequency magnetic fields - often called " EMFs. "

• How they arise.
• How to measure them.
• How to eliminate or reduce them.

Silencing the Fields is useful and informative for:

• the concerned homeowner with little technical background.
• the experienced field measurement professional who wants the latest and best information about field reduction.
• everyone in between.
• anyone who needs to deal with a power company about fields from nearby power lines.
  - What can the company do?
  - What are they likely to do?
  - How to ask for it.
  - How not to ask for it.
• anyone who needs to hire an electrician to help reduce fields.
  - When do we need an electrician?
  - What do we ask to have done?

Physicist Ed Leeper has been active for nearly three decades, working with epidemiologist Nancy Wertheimer, PhD, in the area of research that has explored the possible health risks of AC magnetic fields. In Silencing the Fields he draws together in one resource the related work that has been done by various scientists, engineers, and electricians on evaluating and reducing AC magnetic fields. He has been at the center of that work, from its beginning.

The "politics" and the technical difficulties of getting changes made by a power company are discussed. And the human side. Information your power company may not want you to know, or at least won't volunteer - and things they do want you to understand. (They have the idea that they are not really ogres, but are fathers and mothers and homeowners themselves.)

A power company will not spend large amounts to reduce fields. Indeed, they may not be allowed or encouraged to do so by state regulatory agencies. (Since such costs get passed through to the electric rates for all customers, a state Utilities Commission usually has the final decision.) But certain low-cost changes may be possible - especially if we can argue that there are other reasons to "upgrade" a line. (Better, more well-maintained lines may make lower fields, and conserve energy as well. See, for instance, sample chapter 65, elsewhere in this site.)

However, the fields we find in our homes may have little to do with the equipment or actions of our power company. Often field remediation is something we can do ourselves, or have done for us at a reasonable cost. And we may improve the electrical safety and "code compliance" of our homes in the process. Silencing the Fields describes all the ways that have been found to do those things.

Contents:

Part I - High Magnetic Fields - Avoiding them or Reducing them
  (introductory material)

Part II - Water Line Currents - Do they Matter?
  (perhaps the biggest source of residential fields)

Part III - Mitigating Water-line-current Fields
  (measures that can reduce water line currents and/or their field production)

Part IV - Wiring Errors and Anomalies
  (the various errors or defects that produce field-generating loops of current inside a house)

Part V - Power Company Wiring - Distribution Lines
  (the lines that bring power to a neighborhood or to an individual house, and how they may produce or not produce fields)

Part VI - Power Company Wiring - Transmission Lines
  (high-voltage lines that carry power long distances - their fields and the difficulty of doing anything about them)

Part VII - Magnetic Shielding and "Conduit Shielding"
  (the "obvious" way to reduce fields that is usually disappointing or exorbitant, or both - with exceptions)

Part VIII - Appliance Fields
  (fields that may be the highest we see, but are localized - various fixes, for various appliances - mainly distance)

Part IX - Available Magnetic Field Meters
  (35 makes and models in the range from $40 to $730 - their convenience, their accuracy, their quirks - with photos)

Appendices
  (technical details for electricians, plumbers, power company technicians using a "Beast of Burden" instrument/pipe thawers)

Jargon
  (a glossary of technical terms and buzz words)

Ed Leeper
6112 Fourmile Canyon
Boulder, CO 80302

303-442-3773