Magic Carpet Rides
Some swine do fly
Long ago I was summoned by someone ailing far away. Me not being a physician, I inquired what the ailment was, to see if I was dealing with the real deal or a nutcase (as sometimes happens).
The man said his floor was bothering his feet. Fair enough. Bad shoes, I thought. No that’s not it, he said. “I feel like my feet are being pricked by thousands of needles.”Okay, now it was sounding a bit interesting, as from The Far Side©.
So the man saying he’d consulted other specialists, and finding no resolve, I took the dare. The man being distant from me, and realizing this was going to be a one-time visit, I took my bigger bag of tools and headed out, for some air.
The man’s house had some mold issues. But that wasn’t it. The man’s house had some air flow issues, uncontrolled, leakage, that sort of thing. But that wasn’t it.
The man’s house had slab-on-grade (no basement, for those not in-the-know), and in-floor hydronic heat.
The hydronic heat had three metallic pipe loops, so three pipes went into the slab, and three pipes came out of it. Suspecting his pricking feeling being related to something electric, I took an amp-clamp (a probe with a jaw that clamps around something) and measured for electric current in the six pipes.
All pipes had current through them, and anyone might reasonably conclude that current in = current out, as they must (/should) for each loop, that is. But checking all six pipes, none of them were equal to each other. My snap conclusion was that there was uncontrolled current flowing somewhere. But the concrete slab?
Well, concrete has lots of salts, that may be electrically conductive. Concrete in contact with the soil will contain moisture, that may help the salts conduct. But the slab is customarily isolated from the soil below it by a plastic sheet . . . Really? Completely? Well in any case, I told the man, the solution was to isolate the metal pipes from the concrete floor, accomplished by installation of dielectrics (non-conductive section of pipe) in each pipe. Six of them in total.
The man invited a plumber to do the job, who came, and quickly proceeded to ridicule him. “Water conducts electricity, you see. He said. Installing the dielectrics will not stop current flow.” The man called me and said he didn’t like being ridiculed, in his own home. I told him the plumber was smoking dope, or was a smoking dope. I told him to let his fingers do the walking®, and call another plumber.
A technical aside - Water conducts electricity, when rich with lots of salt, as in seawater, or dirty. The water in his heating system was neither of these. Electrical conductivity requires some Voltage. The richer in salts the material in question, the less the voltage required for current to flow, and vice versa. The man’s metal piping was inherently connected to his electrical ground, which under normal circumstances (as in this case) will only have a fraction of one volt (maybe 250 mV (millVolts)) different than unaffected soil. So, with very low voltage, and clean water, its conductivity was probably nil, compared to fully conductive metal piping.
The second plumber kept his mouth shut (he must have needed the money more than the desire to insult lesser beings) and installed the six dielectrics. The man had immediate relief, told me so, and wrote a book about it, featuring yours truly (UNPLUG, Sam Wieder ISBN-13 9781892241030 ($10 on https://www.amazon.com/Unplug-Survive-Thrive-Wi-Fi-World/dp/189224103X, or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unplug-sam-wieder/1122486096), or free for viewing at https://archive.org/details/unplughowtosurvi0000wied).
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On another errand with similarities, someone had detected a Magnetic field (a result of concentrated current flow configuration, as in a motor, or where supply and return currents are not equal, as in power lines) in his home. No power line in sight.
I similarly used the amp-clamp. But first a field survey outside the home did not disclose any sources. So I whipped out the amp-clamp and took the electric system to task. The main electrical feed entered the home’s basement, then traveled to the breaker panel at the other end. A quick check of the main feed disclosed a substantial current flow (this is a current check never done by electricians, because it will always be zero (unfortunately they are wrong and in most cases there is measurable current that is relevant, significant, and uncontrolled)).
I proceeded to the breaker panel and took off the cover.
Never, ever, do this, or strange things may happen . . .
I placed a special flexible amp-clamp around the three wires comprising the electric feed in the panel and detected zero current.
Although there was an intentional grounding rod near the point of entry, it had no current flow, as soil is generally a poor electrical conductor when at a single point. However, a clamp around the main feed displayed a substantial current. As it turned out, there was a grounding connection to the concrete slab’s rebar (UFER ground) at the other end of the basement. So although the structure did not have an obvious wiring error, the electric utility’s neutral was feeding current past the conventional grounding point to the rebar, which offers a much larger surface area for current to flow through the soil, back to the utility, even with the low voltages present.
Disconnected the connection to the rebar and the field, almost magically, vanished.
A technical aside - Grounding is a god thing. It protects you from lightning-induced fires. What’s the chance of that? Well . . . if you don’t have any tall trees nearby, and your house sits on a hill, where is cannot be hid®. Well you may have bought he farm in that case. Exceed the normal grounding provisions and then you facilitate the electric utility forcing electric current through the soil, to points unknown (in three dimensions: two physical, and one - time), whose direction and strength will vary dynamically and unpredictably. You be the judge as to what is acceptable in / near your own home. For those in rental housing / condos, the picture gets murky, because 1) you cannot control the variables, and 2) several / many user in close quarters causes unusual / strange magnetic fields (in four dimensions, three physical, and one - time).
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And then there are electrical amendments
One of them, Power Perfect so named, comprises a box that gets umbilically connected to your electric panel. This is an install job for an electrician, which takes time to schedule. The device’s warranty is 30 days. It claims to harmonize your electric system by removing “dirty electricity” (I am paraphrasing, as I don’t know exactly what they claim, or care to). Most people being clueless about what is electricity, they are even more brain-fogged as to what “dirty electricity” is. Having struck fear in the heart of the consumer, the deal is sealed.
A technical aside - “Dirty electricity,” a marketing term for Harmonics, describes faster echoes of the alternating power frequency available to you. In a perfect world, we would not have “dirty electricity,” nor need solutions to it. It’s caused by nonlinear / non-smooth current usage, such as from fluorescents lighting, dimmer switches, digital devices. So for that matter we’ve all got it to some extent (get a load of the size of that market . . . ), and we’ve had it mostly for the last 100 years or so, by fluorescent lighting. So it’s not new. The marketed solution includes some electrical devices that reduce the higher frequency echoes. But those same devices produce their own echoes in the region frequented by the human voice, to which we are finely attuned, generally slower than 5000 Hz.
So these cures reduce something, and enhance something else (compare this to any contraindications for any medicine you take . . . ).
A former client bought one of these boxes, and had an electrician install it. Since its installation she felt worse. She then contacted the vendor, who said their product was not faulty, and advised her to separate the neutral and grounds in the breaker panel. She then contacted me asking for help.
A technical aside - The neutral and ground in the main breaker panel Must be joined and function as one, for proper system operation. In a Sub-panel they should be separated.
I told her that asking her to separate the neutral and grounds in the Main breaker panel was blowing smoke, and was a stalling tactic to exceed the 30 days warranty and cause her to “buy the farm.” I advised to quickly get an electrician to remove the device and ship it back.
She reported back and noted feeling better after its removal, and even better after her electrician disconnected her UFER (basement slab rebar) grounding point. However, since I did not visit, I cannot offer any details as to how the configuration manifested itself.
A variant of the above is a unit you plug in. After the initial market entrant, several manufacturers joined the gravy train, so you can now get models for 120V, for 240V, and in different colors. AND if you don’t have enough local outlets, use a power strip to gang several of these little puppies together . . .
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And Earthing / Grounding cures
In most common detached homes, the wiring internal to structural cavities is known as Romex, or non-metallic covered, NM for short (no pun intended). While the plastic covering prevents direct contact and resulting fires or death, it is transparent to the Electric fields produced from the alternating Voltage. Since there are two oppositely polarized buses in each breaker panel, the three-dimensional aspect of the interior is that of an electrified birdcage, where different bars have different voltages.
One of the cures to allay this oppressive electrical offshoot is to “ground yourself.” You can do this by using an Earthing / Grounding sheet in your bedding, or a separate Earthing / Grounding mat that you sit / lay on.
For ease of explanation, since it’s inherently difficult / murky to display three-dimensional changing entities, I’ll use the Sky Voltage that we are exposed to whenever we are outdoors.
The sketch at left displays the undisturbed field, and that at right when a human is introduced.
We then compare that to the effect when voltages are alternating, since static / direct voltages (DC) do not produce any current across a space with insulative properties as in shoes (but yes, the atmosphere is partially conductive).
One of the ways of quantifying the effect is to measure BV (Body Voltage, typically 50 mV to 5V, a 100 to one ratio) relative to some reference. That reference may need to be the electric system ground, when in an upper floor of a multi-story structure, or possibly an earth ground via an isolated ground rod, when near ground level.
When an earthing sheet is applied to bedding, you usually have a sheet of conventional fabric between you and the earthing sheet, so that would relate to the sketch at left where there is some BV, less than typical with circuits normally energized, but with a displacement current flow that depends mostly on surface area. Even with a mat you sit on, you will usually wear some clothes, replicating the “shoed” sketch at left.
The gist of this Electric field menagerie is that introducing a human within it, distorts and concentrates the field onto the human, AND introducing a “grounded” earth sheet / mat below you exponentially concentrates the field onto you by virtue of you being on top of a more convenient field “sink.”
The additional green snake in the grass is that some electrical outlets are mis-wired. Yes, it happens. The electric ground of such an outlet may have 120 V on it. Try to meditate connected to that!
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And then there is the “low-EMF” sauna
This was a “portable sauna,” electrical of course, that you wrapped yourself in. The manufacturer claimed it was very low / zero EMFs. The vendor wanted to verify this, and sent it to me.
EMFs by definition encompasses Low Frequency Magnetic (M) fields, Low Frequency Electric (E) fields, higher frequency Harmonics (aka “dirty electricity”), and RF / Radio Frequencies.
So I took out my trusty instruments and measured M fields. Zero. I measured Harmonics as nothing more than already on the electric system. I measured RF as nothing more than already in the background. I measured E fields, 80 V. The residential electric system provides 120 V in my general area, 240 V elsewhere. Having a wrap-around device energizing you to 80 V (or 160 V if the supply were 240 V) when in use is NOT “low EMF.”
The vendor balked. I then educated them as to EMFs’ definition.
I need to go get my generator prepped for low EMFs . . .
Enjoy and stay tuned.
Cheers,
Sal
BTW, none of these fields can do harm, says one camp. The other says they can.
If there was any chance of harm, and you were sane, which would you choose?