Living near high voltage powerlines

jeepinmatt

DEI Hire
Moderator
Joined
Mar 24, 2005
Location
Stanley, NC
What are yalls thoughts about living near high voltage power lines? Like 200ft from dwelling to the closest line. Sure way to die young of cancer? No worries, don't even think twice?
 
Just my opinion, I think the Tin Foil Hats, make too much of it. Who really knows, you might get more damage from your cell phone. I wouldn't worry about 200' & 80'[?] high power lines.
 
I was walking down a powerline when I was 13/14 yo hunting doves w a friend w my shotgun in my hand and the barrel rested on my shoulder pointing back as we walked up a hill and the barrel started to sting/shock my neck. Years later I was surveying a powerline and when I touched the Topcon I would get a spark that I could see from my finger/thumb to the knob on the instrument. It didn't hurt much but It was annoying.
 
I was walking down a powerline when I was 13/14 yo hunting doves w a friend w my shotgun in my hand and the barrel rested on my shoulder pointing back as we walked up a hill and the barrel started to sting/shock my neck. Years later I was surveying a powerline and when I touched the Topcon I would get a spark that I could see from my finger/thumb to the knob on the instrument. It didn't hurt much but It was annoying.
I used to have a ladder stand on a transmission line that cut though our hunting club. The vibrations that came off that pole during peak demand made it impossible to aim a scope.
 
The parking area at the Whitewater center in Charlotte is under some high voltage lines, and I stopped parking my truck directly under them because the running boards would shock me through my leg hairs. :eek:
There has got to be some way to passively capture that errant electricity and use it elsewhere. I'd love to tell folks I ran my house off of electricity I bummed from the transmission lines that ran near my house
 
I never got shocked or had any lingering effects but years ago I had a 108 inch whip antenna (still have it ) for my CB. Any time we went wheeling at the "power lines" literally a trail down a power lines my CB wouldn't work and all I could hear was static. guy I was with told me its the whip trying to generate a ground to the power lines. not sure how true that was but made sense at the time
 
While bike riding on the trail along the New River at Foster Falls below the Shot Tower in VA there is a spot where the high tension lines are kinda close to the trail.
Those things make a lot of noise as you pass under them.
 
Last edited:
There has got to be some way to passively capture that errant electricity and use it elsewhere. I'd love to tell folks I ran my house off of electricity I bummed from the transmission lines that ran near my house
You been looking at my search history?:stupid:
Screenshot_20210530-091659_Chrome.jpg
 
There's been too many times I've been out floating the river in either a kayak or Jon boat and crossed under high voltage power lines during a rain and watched bolts walk from phase to phase. It has a pretty blue color to it. I have pictures on Photobucket if I can still get to them. All the sudden you don't feel so manly anymore.
 
Mu buddy Dwayne used to live on a street where those huge H shaped transmission towers/lines went right down beside the street. They were maybe 75 feet from his front door.

I have been there and sitting on the tailgate of a truck and felt the power vibrating the veh and have been zapped a few times grabbing something metal.

They moved after a few years and have no cancer AFAIK
 
There has got to be some way to passively capture that errant electricity and use it elsewhere. I'd love to tell folks I ran my house off of electricity I bummed from the transmission lines that ran near my house
This was Tesla's whole plan for power distribution. Radiated energy.
Entirely possible for those right under the tower, infeasible for everyone else.
Energy from inductive coils is not hard.

But, it's not "free"...

 
Last edited:
Energy from inductive coils is not hard.

When I was a nerd in middle school, I built a rather large induction coil set up for the school science fair (ended up going to county and piedmont region fairs). And that thing became the basis for any science related activity I had to do through high school. What's the impact of an induction coil on cacti, gold fish, etc etc...at some point I took some nails to generate a 'shock therapy' device...but eventually, since I realized no one ever followed up on results...my hypothesis became it was much easier to create my own results, than perform the actual experiment...and it was correct/substantiated stance. An 'A' is an 'A'.
 
Last edited:
A long time ago I read an article about a guy having a large coil of wire in his attic, and he lived near high voltage lines. Best I remember he had figured out the correct number of coils to produce 120 volts and was able to use the power. Until the power company found out, then I think he ended up in a pretty significant amount of legal trouble.
 
A long time ago I read an article about a guy having a large coil of wire in his attic, and he lived near high voltage lines. Best I remember he had figured out the correct number of coils to produce 120 volts and was able to use the power. Until the power company found out, then I think he ended up in a pretty significant amount of legal trouble.
What could he get in trouble for? It's not his fault they were shooting electricity into his house all willy nilly.
 
What could he get in trouble for? It's not his fault they were shooting electricity into his house all willy nilly.
I'm not sure, I will have to see if I can dig up the article. I think they looked at it as stealing electricity, the same as you climbing a pole and hooking up a bootleg connection.
 
A long time ago I read an article about a guy having a large coil of wire in his attic, and he lived near high voltage lines. Best I remember he had figured out the correct number of coils to produce 120 volts and was able to use the power. Until the power company found out, then I think he ended up in a pretty significant amount of legal trouble.
What could he get in trouble for? It's not his fault they were shooting electricity into his house all willy nilly.
Per the article I posted - technically it is stealing power.
The decrease is small, but officially its there - the inductive coils add a load to the transmitter, which decreases delivery on the other end of the wire.
I suspect the cost in legal action exceeds what the power company actually loses, but their bigger prpblem is that they can't afford for everybody to start doing it. Not only bc at a large scal it would have a notable loss, but there's the more obvious loss of their revenue from bein a paying customer...
 
Well, if you live next to power lines, you might get to see cool shit like this.
 
High voltage distribution lines are generally high enough that I wouldn’t be concerned, other than from a re-sell perspective because it will scare some off.

I’ve been in the Switchyard on Hwy 73 across from the nuke plant multiple times. Once myself and the Switchyard Engineer took our summer intern into the Switchyard. We almost scared the pee out of him because we had him lift one arm above his head. There in the Switchyard your hairs will raise up on your arm when you do that.
 
Back
Top