Posted on 12/28/2006 5:17:17 AM PST by GQuagmire
A North Attleboro man faces financial ruin because he built a new home so close to dangerous high-voltage transmission lines that fluorescent bulbs inside the house light up without even being plugged in. The electric currents running through the two-story home are considered so potentially harmful that the towns fire department has strung caution tape around the house while an electrical inspector has refused to issue a final permit out of fear someone might get electrocuted. The homes metallic door knobs and exterior shingles give off mild electric jolts when touched, while flowing currents are strong enough to light up fluorescent bulbs on their own, the homeowner and experts agree. I spent everything I had, said Chris Zagami, who invested up to $70,000 of his own money and took out a $290,000 construction loan to build the 1,700-square-foot home just 27 feet from giant overhead 345,000-volt transmission lines owned by National Grid. Zagami, 30, whose bank is now threatening to call in its loan, blames the fiasco on others, including the town of North Attleboro for issuing him a building permit and National Grid for allegedly constructing one transmission tower years ago too close to his property.
Financially, Im so in over my head that its ridiculous, said Zagami, a phone-company technician who grew up only 50 yards away from his new home on Lindley Street in North Attleboro.
The building inspector who issued the permit no longer works for the town. John Rhyno, a town selectman, said he wants to know why the town issued a building permit in the first place, though he maintained theres nothing in state statutes that sets guidelines for building homes close to transmission lines.
You would think common sense would have prevailed before construction started, he said of everyone involved, including Zagami.
A spokeswoman for National Grid, which owns the transmission lines, said Zagami has no one to blame but himself for proceeding with construction last year without getting the companys permission.
Debbie Drew, the spokeswoman, said Zagami built his home on National Grids easement and ignored its repeated warning to stop.
Zagami, who is single and whose now largely completed home sits abandoned, said his surveys show that National Grid actually built one transmission tower off of its easement years ago.
My life is being destroyed, said Zagami, of the financial crunch hes now facing. I was trying to live the American dream and now Im getting killed.
Electrons have orbits they are comfy in. The electrons can be forced into bigger orbits with more electrons forced into the mix. When the pressure is released the elecyrons go back to their comfy orbit. When they go back to their comfy orbit, energy is released in the form of visible light.
This is just what I recall from high school 30 years ago. My understanding is simply that the light is simply produced by the lowering of the energy state. I'll have to look it up.
Not untrue. Electrons in a gas molecule quickly - in nanoseconds - drop down into the ground state, emitting a well defined line spectrum with each transition. Electrons can be excited out of the ground state in a number of ways, collisions that knock electrons free are one.
During recombination, the electron drops through a series of states quickly giving off a characteristic wavelength photon at each step along the way.
Yep, then the photon hits the phosphorus coating producing the glow we can see.
I once read a book by Einstein, what I recall the most was his apologizing for having to use a mathematical equation in his book. He was writing to the average man, and wanted to explain things as clearly as possible. That influence made me choose a decidedly unscientific term such as "comfy", in an earlier response.
Anyway this little discussion of ours started when I was not sure how a DC current could make a florescent bulb glow as you stated in post #86.
Riiiight, and Martians are living in my basement.
If he get shocks in the house, better check the house wiring, don't blame the power lines outside!!
this poor guy needs a damn good lawyer.....any takers?
You have an auwful lot of time on your hands, beating on Mr Zagami. The large power companies have all the resources to bury their wrongdoing. I would love to see a lawyer that has the guts to contact Mr Zagami to challenege the validity of National Grid's so called plans. Those poles had to be put in via satellite. An inch off for satellite is feet off on the ground. Let's not be so quick to attack this poor guy when he may actually have a good argument against the grid!
http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2006/12/29/kirchner.ma.charged.house.wlne
Video of the story.
It doesn't look that close to the wires...
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