Years ago when I was in Building Biology certification, all of us newbies had to do practice assessments before venturing out in the “real” world.
In other words, friends and family turned into willing guinea pigs to work the bugs out and get used to everything, especially the unknowns and how to roll with them in the middle of an assessment.
Lucky for me, all of mine went swimmingly well with rave reviews on getting better sleep, feeling less stressed out, and more peaceful. Lots of good stuff.
Except for one.
My weightlifting coach and his wife, who was a trauma nurse were super excited to be included in my guinea pig group because they loved anything that had to do with improving health wellness.
They also didn’t know much about EMFs but wanted to learn more, especially when it came to things lurking in their home they didn’t know about.
I had already done a bunch of practice assessments and felt confident going into this one, knowing what to ask, red flags to look for, checking the cell towers, and reviewing Google maps for intel to get a heads up of what to look for when I showed up.
In other words, I was totally prepared when I showed up.
We walked and talked as I took measurements outside, explaining what the different readings were, what they meant or where the sources were coming from, if they were higher or lower than average, and if any mitigation could be done and what that would look like.
Then we did the same thing inside the home, walking through all of the rooms and taking different measurements, moving a few things around and doing some test shielding.
Then we came to the part of the assessment where we cut the power.
Cutting the power finds wiring errors (which happens about 30% of the time) and gives you true baseline measurements to what’s outside of the home that’s coming in and how strong the fields are.
One of the questions I asked when we set up the appointment is if they had an alarm system and if it was OK to cut the power, and they had said yes, so we were good.
We turned the power off and all hell broke loose.
If you’re a 70s child or earlier, you’re probably familiar with the loud, clangy alarm bells that went off for recess that anyone within a few block radius could also hear.
The older alarm systems were also like that, and judging from the volume, I’d bet money they used the same bells.
They had one of those the old clangy alarm bell systems I hadn’t heard since I was a little girl.
And we couldn’t turn it off!
Even the alarm company couldn’t turn it off remotely because the system was so old!
As we screamed at each other over the loud clanging bell, we decided to postpone the rest of the assessment.
I was so prepared, and yet… sometimes there’s things you just can’t prepare for, and this happened to be one of them.
As you might have guessed, this is an analogy EMF pre-purchase assessments because it’s impossible to to be prepared for what you don’t know.
These tips will save you time, help you keep your sanity, and give you answers to the questions your realtor will ask to set you off on the right foot. If you’re renting and not buying, the same process applies and is less complicated since you’re not working with the selling parties.
So grab a cup of your favorite hot beverage and let’s dive in!
Add EMFs to your list of criteria
You want to do this so you don’t forget about it until the last minute, or until it’s too late and you’re under contract or, worst case scenario, you’ve already bought the house. I’ve experienced both situations with clients when EMF issues were found, and you want to avoid both of these situations if at all possible. So get EMFs added and all of the criteria items on your deal breaker list with everything else.
When should you get the assessment done?
Try to get this done before extending an offer, or make the assessment results a condition of an offer if you can. Even though it’s an extra step in the offer process, it will save a tremendous amount of stress because you won’t be under contract at that point. I recently worked with a client who didn’t think about this until after their offer was accepted and then had to make a hard decision if they were going to walk away from their earnest money based on the EMF issues that were found.
Coordinate the assessment with your realtor as soon as you can
Does your realtor know you’d like an assessment done? This is where scheduling nightmares start because the selling realtor and the homeowner has to give permission and available times. If the selling realtor needs to be present during the assessment (usually for high end or luxury homes), that’s another calendar to coordinate which can eat up more time.
So give your realtor a heads up you want this done for any homes you make an offer for, and answer their questions beforehand. Which leads us to….
Questions your realtor is going to ask you
Your realtor is going to come back and say “Huh? I’ve never heard of this before?” and before they’re on board and ask the selling realtor permission for the assessment. Knowing these in advance saves you a bunch of going-back-and-forth time. The most common questions are “What exactly is an EMF assessment and what’s involved?”, “How long does it take?”, and if it’s like an inspection (like a pass/fail kind of thing).
Here are realtor-friendly answers
The EMF assessment involves taking measurements from electrical fields inside and outside that could be affecting the home – such as cell towers, power lines, etc. with special instruments from a certified professional.
It’s not the same as a home inspection with a hard pass/fail to meet any regulation. This leads back to the original issue or debate that EMF fields aren’t considered harmful and there’s a lack regulation around this topic. I usually say that this would be similar to an indoor air quality test for pollution where there’s good/better/best recommendations but not necessarily regulation when it comes to buying a home.
The measurements will be compared to the Building Biology guidelines which are for sleeping areas only. Your body repairs itself from the stresses of the day while you’re sleeping, so the EMF fields in the bedroom should be as low as possible to support deep sleep cycles. These are much lower than what you’d expect to see in other areas of the home, or in places outside of the home such as offices, stores, restaurants, etc… This means the results are fairly subjective to interpretation.
It usually takes one to three hours depending on the size of the house and property, if it’s occupied or empty, and what fields are elevated. If the buyer is present, room setups, especially for bedrooms, offices and anywhere else a significant amount of time is spent are discussed in addition to what the readings indicate and what, if any mitigation or shielding is recommended, materials and installation options.
Turning off the power to get true baseline readings affects the length of the appointment. If the house is occupied the answer is almost always “no”, but empty homes usually get the green light to turn off power.
Deciding if it’s a thumbs up or a hard pass?
Since it’s not a pass/fail inspection, you might be wondering – how do I know if it’s a thumbs up or hard pass?
Most clients want to know these three things:
- Are the readings low enough that I don’t need to worry?
- If any of the readings or fields are high, where are they and where are they coming from? Can I do anything and what does that look like in time, money and options?
- Would you live here based on what you found?
If the buyer is present, they’ll know all three by the end of the assessment.
If the buyer isn’t present, what I’ve found that works the best is an recap call immediately afterwards with a thumbs up/thumbs down and talk through everything that was found (or not), and things they can address or won’t be able to.
A report with all of the readings and a summary is emailed out within a day or two for reference and to absorb the information at a deeper level and decide whether or not to move forwards with an offer.
Feeling like you need a checklist for all this?
I got you covered – the freebie is a printer-friendly version of all-of-the-above as well as a cheatsheet checklist.
There’s also a page to give your realtor that answers their questions before they get a chance to ask so you can work on getting scheduled instead of going back and forth with everyone’s questions (plus you’ll look like a rock star). Brilliant!
Click here to get my EMF Pre-Purchase Guidelines and Cheatsheet.
Oh and that alarm? They couldn’t turn it off. They had to completely disable and unhook the entire thing it to stop the clanging.
Today when I ask clients if they have alarm systems, I find out how old it is and if there’s any issues if the power is turned off.
Much love,
Risa
P.S. If you’re also looking for a shortcut list of EMF criteria when looking at homes, there’s a checklist in my book called How to Find a Low EMF Home.
P.P.S. Did you know that I wrote a DIY EMF book called “What The EMF? It’s the book I wish I had when I first started learning about EMFs. It’s super easy to understand with step-by-step instructions, and nutrition and holistic solutions and you can binge read it in a day. I’m real proud of it and you can click here to order it
Did you know you can share any of my articles? Click one of the social icons below or Grab the post URL here (and thank you!)
Did a friend forward this to you? (sharing is caring!) Click the button below to get your own emails delivered to your Inbox.
| Get me on your list! |