live near a substation?

[red30505]

Our Homebuyers report has mentioned that there's a substation within 20m of the property.

Shockingly I hadn't even noticed it before when we looked round- (but am driving back up there tomo to have another look).

We've a young daughter and from what I've read so far there's the possibility of risks of childhood cancers, etc.

Doing lots of reading of studies etc - but I find opinion and experiences useful in the past.

Wondered what people's experiences of buying properties near substations(or not) and /or living by substations.

You are obviously an anti-electricity-er.

(sorry couldn't resist)

In the same way you are concerned others will be too when you come to sell in the future.

There’s one every few hundred metres round here so a lot of houses are close.
I wouldn’t want to be next door or be able to see it but wouldn’t mind it being a few doors away or bottom of a reasonable length garden. If I didn’t make those concessions, I would be ruling too many homes out!

Used to have one at the end of my very small (9 houses) cul-de-sac. Never crossed my mind to be concerned about it.

There is a small one in the primary school near me. I wouldn't worry about cancer because the electrickery nearer to you is more dangerous (wifi, mobile phone, domestic electricity wiring). I can hear it hum though on a hot summer night when the windows are open.

Larger substations might concern me more, but the regular ones on almost every street in a city aren't a big issue

Where is your data from? If it was proven 100% by peer reviewed reliable research then yes I would worry but otherwise no I wouldn't.
People have MRI scans every day which is the strongest magnetic field you will ever be in, that won't cause cancer. The stray magnetic field from a small substation will be tiny. Not enough to affect someone in a house 20 meters away. As someone else has said it's the 50 hertz hum that will annoy you more. At these low frequencies you might be able to hear it when the house is quiet. Low frequency noise can travel quite far and is difficult if not impossible to stop. They have probably mentioned it so you are fully aware and can't complain if you do purchase then notice any annoying humming.

I've lived near several over the years. Not worried about cancer and noone ever mentioned it when I was selling. But they can attract nuisance. I've noticed..local youths smoking dope and making a noise out of sight round the back of one substation; small kids climbing on flat roof and throwing stuff at each other; residents using a substation 'driveway' for parking in a way that caused nuisance. There's one house between mine and a small substation currently. I can't hear anything but the hum irritated my neighbour at night.

There is a substation in the area at the back of my parents house
We had great fun as kids playing around it and the surrounding garages 😂
Then Western Power put up security gates at the entrance of the access area to stop
Local kids hanging out and causing trouble
and stolen cars being dumped
you now pay £25 for the key if you want access which is fair
You always had to pay a small fee £1 a month to have access anyway in the deeds of the house

I'd take a substation over another house/neighbour any day.

We’ve got one down our road (small terrace of 5 houses - it’s across the road from the houses). We don’t hear anything, never worried about health risks, we don’t have any issues with “teenagers mucking about” and the houses down the road sell v quickly - if it does put people off, we’ve never noticed.

Having just seen it the whole brick enclosure is less than the size of our car and it's the other end of our terrace, across the carpark.
I want to get the emf report, but feel a lot better about it than I did last night.

They are not anymore dangerous than the very same electricity which comes from it into your home

because the electrickery nearer to you is more dangerous

Sorry, that is simply not true, the substation steps the voltage down for use inside your home. It’s a great big fuck off magnet with the cable wrapped around it.

The humm is the electrical current ‘flipping’ it’s direction @ 50Hz.

Someone has to live by one, like 5G masts and what not, if you look long enough you’ll find health impacts to most things. The only thing that would stop me is the fact people will be worried when I came to sell.. is it a forever home?

There's one at the far bottom of next-door' garden. Can't say it's ever been an issue, and we've lived here over 30 years. The only thing I've noticed is a faint hum, but you can't hear it from our garden, you'd need to stand quite close to it.

@red30505

Having just seen it the whole brick enclosure is less than the size of our car and it's the other end of our terrace, across the carpark. I want to get the emf report, but feel a lot better about it than I did last night.

Great idea.

My childhood home was directly next to a substation. It was never ever a problem or an issue in any way. In fact it was handy as a bit of a partition between us and the neighbours. My parents lived there for 42 years, no issues re the substation.

When they sold it it was a bit difficult because people were suspicious of it but it was never ever an issue for us at all.

If it wasn’t an issue they wouldn’t mention it in a survey.

This means it is something which will affect the attractiveness of the area which in turn affects your house price. I would think there is a risk to health but you would have to look into it more.

It will affect the same price when you come to sell it on in due course.

It cities they are every couple of hundred metres or so depending on housing density. Surveyor reports have to list everything, it told us there was within 200m industrial units (we know) recycling depot (3 containers in home bargains car park) licenced premises (pub) and yes a substation - very densely populated so 150m is a long way!

I bought a house right next to one. Didn’t really think about it when I bought the house. The electrician said I should have no problems with my supply 😂. I sold my house a few months ago. Not one person who looked at the house mentioned it. So it didn’t make any difference when re selling

You are going to get a shock (hehe) OP when you find out that most large buildings such as hospitals or shopping centers or apartment blocks have one INSIDE THEM :P

Our old house had one at the bottom of the (small) garden. We lived there from when DC was a baby till age 7. They are in their 20s now and perfectly healthy.

I couldn't live near a pylon or a high voltage line though, they give me the Heebie jeebies

We sold to the third people to view the house, I don't think the substation was ever mentioned.

I'd not thought about it until an architect friend brought it up n asked what I thought. The survey mentioned health risks, which I'd missed til this point.

Otherwise it's an ace layout, even if house needs a lot of updating.

We had one in our garden, it didn't cause us any problems (as far as I know) and we didn't give it a second thought it but I wouldn't want to be near an electricity pylon.

I think sub-stations are 'relatively' low voltage compared with pylons which are 'High Voltage' (up to 400,000 volts apparently) which is why you can often hear them humming. (or maybe they do this to pass the time? )

We are in similar situation. Our offer was accepted two weeks ago and we have arranged a Home Buyer Survey to be taken place later. But we have just realized on google map there is possibly a substation opposite to the back of the house garden.

The house is almost perfect-good location, affluent of sunshine, decent layout and spacious.

My partner thinks the substation won’t have any problem, I worry it might be difficult to sell in the future.

Anyway, we will wait for the Home Buyer Report to decide.