Elevated AC Magnetic EMF in the house?

Hi, I hope this is the right forum to ask this question. I have a quality 3-axis AC Magnetic meter and detected very high levels of AC Magnetic Fields (10-20 mG) close to my electric meter radiating into my house, causing elevated levels in my living room (3 mG). I suspect the source of the radiation is from the wires running into my meter (as it’s just as high on the second floor on that side of the house). I tried shutting off my main circuit breaker to no effect. Should shutting off my main circuit breaker have eliminated any AC magnetic fields? I do however have a semi-attached neighbor whose electric meter is also situated at the same location (so their appliances could still be running when mine are off). The AC Magnetic levels fluctuate every couple minutes, and they were much much lower (sub 0.5 mG in my living room) during the summer. Could my neighbor’s furnace or heater cause this issue? Can this be caused by the service drop line (the wire that connects my house to the poled wires in the street) that runs into my house? but if I wasn’t drawing current, the tapping wire shouldn’t have a field, should it? Please help with any pointers you could give? I’d prefer not having to involve my neighbor until I have a better idea. thank you!

Where I live, there are two separate cutoff switches: One at the breaker box and another outside by the meter (which stays on even if both switches are off).

There is not enough information to draw any conclusions at this point, but I just want to point out to you that large fields far away from wires or equipment requires a large loop of current.

What I mean by this is that when electricity travels "correctly" in a home, it always travels to and from the equipment in wires that are very close to each other. This makes the loop area inside the TO and FROM wires very small.

Now if you would separate the TO and FROM wires from each other, the area between the wires will grow, and now you will produce a much larger radiating field.

So the bigger the so called loop area is, the larger the EMF field produced by that current loop will be.

Normally this is not a problem, because the hot wire and the neutral wire are always next to each other inside your wall or wherever the wire has been routed. So the loop area is small, and the radiation is limited.

But if you have a wiring error in the building, it is possible that the current from the hot wire returns either through ANOTHER neutral wire, OR through the ground. In both cases this can create a current loop where the loop area becomes large, and the EMF field will grow as a result.

Now I don't know if this is the problem you're having. But I just want to point out that ground loops and incorrect wiring can create very bad problems with large electric fields far away from the fuse box or any equipment.

Here is a good example from Michael Neuert, who is a building biologist, where he fixes exactly this kind of problem for one of his customers. If you live in the US, maybe you want to give him a call:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trUb2D4jiyg

Thank you casper for the detailed explanation. This solidifies some of the things I had learned but forgotten. I noticed when my neighbor is sleeping or out and about, the AC magnetic field in my house drops to 0.01 mG. Can I pretty much eliminate my own house as the culprit? could any winter plug-in equipment cause a wiring fault that introduces the loop? or maybe only when it's plugged into a bad outlet? It's looking like I might have to involve them after all, and ask them to run some tests with my meter. What would you suggest? thanks!

Thank you too, Karl! I'd have to look into that if it comes to it, but generally a little hesitant to touch anything outside that I don't understand...

See this page and go about half way down to where there are 3 house
diagrams in a row. And three causes listed. The issue for you may be a
double-ganged ground error in the wiring. You get high readings away from
walls and wiring, in the middle of the room when the affected circuits are
in use, as illustrated in #3 house diagram.

Or you can find the 3 diagrams with a search for the first instance of the
term "knob-and-tube". That is probably the problem in this 100+ year old
house where I live with my mom.  The separated wires cause a huge field
when the ceiling lights are turned on. The wiring for the baseboard
circuits was replaced.
https://www.emfrelief.com/capacitive-filters.html

So your neighbor leaves or goes to bed and turns off whatever is on the
double-ganged circuits. The wiring error just needs fixed and the healthier
for both of you, an idea that might help soften having to approach them
about this - stating a concern for their well-being as well as your own.

We also have some major wires running down our street close to the house
and with all the circuit breakers turned off (no main switch that I can
find) there is still a magnetic field of about .2 which fluctuates
constantly (with breakers on or off), and goes down at times of lower
neighborhood power use and up when power usage is higher like at Christmas
time with all the Christmas lights. Bah humbug!

On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 21:54:52 -0700 (MST), "EMF-Q [via ES]"
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi, I hope this is the right forum to ask this question. I have a
quality
> 3-axis AC Magnetic meter and detected very high levels of AC Magnetic
> Fields (10-20 mG) close to my electric meter radiating into my house,
> causing elevated levels in my living room (3 mG). I suspect the source
of
> the radiation is from the wires running into my meter (as it’s just as
> high on the second floor on that side of the house). I tried shutting
off
> my main circuit breaker to no effect. Should shutting off my main
circuit
> breaker have eliminated any AC magnetic fields? I do however have a
> semi-attached neighbor whose electric meter is also situated at the same
> location (so their appliances could still be running when mine are off).
> The AC Magnetic levels fluctuate every couple minutes, and they were
much

Thank you Karen, it's looking more and more likely that my neighbor has some wiring error. I will broach the topic and hopefully convince them to do something about it, or minimize using a particular circuit, if it can be narrowed down with testing.

KarenEck wrote

The wiring error just needs fixed and the healthier
for both of you, an idea that might help soften having to approach them
about this - stating a concern for their well-being as well as your own.

When I need to ask for that sort of change, I sometimes pretend to be a HAM radio enthusiast and say that the wiring errors are messing up my reception.

Getting back to this. I ruled out issues in my neighbor's house with their help. I took measurements at the incoming water pipe in the basement. When the house field was low, the incoming A/C Magnetic field at the water shutoff valve was around 30 mG. When the house field was very high (5-7 mG in living room), the field at the water shutoff valve was 800 mG.

I know you could remove the incoming current in the water pipe by replacing a section of the pipe with non-conductive piping and install a new ground for the house not connected to the pipes. If I want to keep the water pipe grounding system, but break the pipe after the grounding/bonding point -- to limit the strong field to only the first couple feet of the pipe, and isolate the rest of the house piping (measured ~60 mG during high time). Do you think that's a workable partial solution?

Fog Top wrote

I had a similar problem in my house which has all copper plumbing.  My husband cut out a small section of the copper pipes near where the water lines entered the house and replaced that section with PVC and used an item called a "Shark" from Home Depot (he said this made that part of the work very easy) to reconnect.  He had to do this wherever the plumbing exited the house such as to an outside water faucet, otherwise the magnetic field from that earth connection fed back onto the copper plumbing.  He disconnected the ground wire and left it undone because he felt that this was also adding another source of EMF to the plumbing. You'll have to decide if that option is something you want to do.  We felt it was worth assuming some risk in order to feel well.  I am very sensitive to high magnetic fields and since this problem was fixed we now have a .01 mG level throughout the house which feels very good.

Yikes, so I've done more research on this since I posted. This is highly dangerous... you could get yourselves killed without a replacement ground after cutting the pipe, a fault at the washing machine or at the dish washer could energize all the pipes in the house, it could happen during a shower, you would have no chance of escaping electrocution... inside house pipes should be grounded, and if there are no wiring errors inside the house, there should be no EMF. You should have control of the wiring inside your house.

@Fog Top - I don't know how well this would work, but it should be better than your current solution. You may want to look into using a properly rated diode to keep current from coming in, but allow fault current a path out of the pipes, to lower the risk of energized pipes. Also install a ground rod for lightning protection.

Actually, diode may not work for AC since it only blocks half the current...

" (...) you could remove the incoming current in the water pipe (...) "

Incoming or outgoing ?
casper writes :
"But if you have a wiring error in the building, it is possible that the current from the hot wire returns either through ANOTHER neutral wire, OR through the ground"
I read once that in some parts of the u.s.a. the ground is used as neutral.
If that is the case you may better move, but otherwise when large currents travel into the ground it looks like a wiring error.

How do you tell which side the current source is on? I think it was incoming from the outside because turning off circuit breaker did not stop it, but it could have been riding on the neutral into the house too.

You could disconnect all cables at the point where these enter the house, just after the circuit breaker or the meter or whatever comes first.
When there is AC voltage on a wire, you should of course be able to measure an electrical field that increases when you get very close to it.
When a current flows as well, the wire in question should emit a magnetic field ( mainly at 60 Hz ).