<p>BCE- that’s what I thought, but they’d asked for the disclosure sheet, had started to do the mortgage thing, and was the D of my real estate agent, and was moving toward making an offer when she found out about the wires. She was pregnant, so her mom said she was just overly nervous. </p>
<p>Sure, it could have been something else, and that’s just the reason she gave. But if people see that as a valid reason to give for not buying a house, that in and of itself tells you something.</p>
<p>I agree with you, by the way. But we’re not always rational in our judgments.</p>
<p>Our HOA was approached by a cellphone company to use one of the high voltage towers to mount a cellphone antenna. The tower in question is near the recreation area that includes the pool. I was not particularly concerned about the high voltage wires, but if I had small children spending long hours at the pool I would not want the cellphone tower nearby.</p>
<p>^^ one mile=5280feet… In this ~100,000 population town/area I am considering, I think most houses will be less than half mile from a high tension wire/tower. And in the community I am looking at, there are about 1300 homes, not all are on one acre of lot. None of the homes are more than half a mile from the wire/tower, and RE activities are very hot over here, most homes are sold within 60 days, many are sold within days. If the “half a mile” is a constraint, I mind as well look elsewhere. :)</p>
<p>As I said before, High tension wires are all over the place, if you look carefully, you can find it.</p>
<p>In New Hampshire, they’re easy to spot on Google Earth (away from cities) - you just look for a long clear areas in the woods.</p>
<p>One other small concern with these would be the use of defoliants by the power line companies to keep vegetation away. I know that they have used this defoliants in the past in our state. I don’t know if whether or not they are still used.</p>
<p>Whenever you’re looking at a property you should check too records and a current survey for utility easements right on the property. In your own front yard buried out of sight could be water, sewer, electric, phone, gas, fiber cable, and in the future–something that hasn’t even been invented yet (time travel lines?). There’s so much utility junk buried in some utility easements in residential yards that the utilities have to dig almost with a teaspoon to not disturb everything down there.</p>
<p>Yes, I would be concerned as well on cell towers. 10 years ago, when the phone company wants to eract a tower in a dense residential area in a city owned vacant lot on top of the hill. We all sit in the council’s meeting to protest. They ended up put the tower in the city’s waste dump or the transfer station.</p>
<p>Two major studies published in 2000 by Swedish and American researchers concluded that there was a doubling of the risk of childhood leukaemia associated with the level of magnetic field exposure received around 100 metres from a power line.
Alasdair Phillips, of the consumer group Powerwatch, said: "The Government should bring in a ban on new building within 250 metres of high voltage power lines.
“Nurseries and schools, or the adjacent power lines, should be relocated so that they are further away than 500 metres from high voltage overhead power lines.”</p>
<p>Our utilities are all underground. There are these little boxes above-ground for control or access stuff. Never had a problem with the underground utilities and it’s nice to not have the poles and wires to look at or fail in a snow or ice storm.</p>
<p>I agree buried utility lines are usually better. It’s still smart to get a new survey indicating exactly where utility easements are before buying to make sure previous owners didn’t build on top of the easements or put fences or utility sheds and stuff in the easements that the utility might make you remove. I remember after hurricanes in Florida the electric companies with their big trucks just drove over or through fences and stuff in their easements to get electric service back on–they didn’t have time for handholding.</p>
<p>Let me ask YOUR(CC) reaction in a different slant.</p>
<p>Suppose you found out the UNDERGROUND wire at a house you are considering to purchase is high tension, what will be your reaction? Walk or think?</p>
<p>I had a look at high-voltage cables underground and the sites that came back were in the UK and Europe. Obviously they have these things in big cities in the US but I would imagine that there is considerable shielding and protection for cables.</p>
<p>I also had a look at a graph showing EMF from underground cables compared to overhead cables and the EMF is a lot higher at very small distances and much lower at greater distances.</p>
<p>All homes DO NOT have easements…just because the utility is underground does not mean the underground utility needs an easement…However, if the underground utility services other properties as well as yours, and crosses your property,then their is likley an easement…just simply running an underground service from junction boxes to your home has no easement…another example would be a sewer or storm water line that crosses your property that services the area would require an easement</p>
<p>An undergrand cable running between the feed to your house does not need easement because it is yours and your responsibility, Public Works will not touch that. But the main underground feed(water, electric, sewer etc.) that run pararell into the property would be an easement.</p>
<p>I think some people are overestimating the effect that lines 1000 feet away would have. Artloversplus, you haven’t said if you can actually see the lines from the house you are interested in? Also, the lines do come in different voltages, do you know what these particular ones are?</p>
<p>A friend of mine lost a sister to leukemia at the age of 21. She grew up near a power line. As a result, my friends won’t live near one and would not allow their kids to go to schools near one. Twice I got involved with a fight to stop a cell tower from going up across the street from an elementary school. We won. And, after we went to the board of education, our huge school district adopted a policy to not allow cell phone towers on or near schools which, I have since heard, has now been adopted at the federal level. Was there airtight evidence? No, but there was enough to win the fight and to institute a cautious approach.</p>
<p>If they are adjacent in the backyard I think it hurts value and the market but you can get much more house for the money so just know when you go to sell it, it will be harder and not appreciate as much as nearby homes. In our area there are lots of HT lines bringing in power from the hydro-dams so if they are 1000 feet away it is not an issue.</p>