Before purchasing or renting a house to live in, look carefully at the Construction of the house and the materials with which the house has been built. Both the Location and the Construction of a house will determine the EMF exposure of a house. A) House Construction: Walls The walls of your house are your primary protection from surrounding towers. Materials that provide shielding from EMFs include: Metal (Steel or Aluminum) Stone Stucco (covering chicken wire) Brick Cement block (with metal rebar support) Houses that are made of wood should be avoided. B) House Construction: Roof The roof of your house will also block EMFs from surrounding towers. Consider houses that use one of the following roofing materials: Metal Tile Slate/stone Concrete Roofs made of asphalt or wood are usually not strong enough to provide significant protection from EMF fields. B) House Construction: Foundation Use a concrete foundation for your house. Skip the crawlspace, if possible (make sure that you have good drainage around your house e.g. by installing a French drain). C) House Construction: Insulation Insulation can offer significant protection for an EMF sensitive individual. Select a foil covered insulation (e.g. foil backed rigid insulation). This may be available in your local hardware store, or through companies that install insulation in houses in your area. D) House Construction: Doors Steel doors can help mitigate EMFs from room to room. They can be purchased inexpensively through Home Depot, for example, and can be customized to fit the size of your existing door frames. E) House Construction: Solar Power An ideal house for an individual with EMF Sensitivity is one that is solar powered. The power grid is considered to provide "dirty power," that is, with frequencies above and beyond the 50-60 Hz that the electricity company is supposed to deliver to your house. To the extent that you use solar power, you will reduce any effect from dirty power. Be careful to buy a solar power system that is not attached to the power grid. Many solar operators state that you can earn money by supplying power back to the grid. If you are highly EMF sensitive, however, you should not reconnect back to the citywide electrical grid. Tell your provider that you would like DC electricity at your house, which is preferred for individuals with EMF sensitivity (no conversion to AC necessary). E) House Construction: Generators Another way to get off the power grid and away from "dirty power" is to install a generator at your house. These can be purchased at your local hardware store and be temporarily or permanently installed at your house. F) House Construction: Plumbing Surprisingly, the plumbing of a house can be a source of EMF Sensitivity. This is particularly true if you have large stretches of copper pipe in your house, as is frequently seen with heaters. One way to mitigate problems with plumbing is to use plastic pipes for your plumbing. PEX is one option for plastic plumbing, although several other options exist. You will need to ensure that whatever piping that you choose meets the water and plumbing standards in your area, and can safely carry hot water in particular. Given that replacing your entire plumbing system can be very expensive, a cheaper solution that can also be very effective is to replace a stretch of your metal piping with plastic pipe, for example, where the plumbing enters your house. This is done to insulate your house from the rest of the "plumbing grid." Municipal or private water pumps for example are known to be an extremely high source of magnetic fields and should be separated from your house plumbing. G) House Construction: Electrical System Many houses are poorly or improperly wired (30% of houses). Hire an electrician to conduct an electrical inspection to make sure that your electrical system is in good order. Most importantly, you should check to confirm that your house is properly grounded. All houses should have a grounding rod that is several feet below ground attached to their main electrical panel. All other forms of grounding, e.g. through plumbing, are insufficient. H) House Construction: Site The siting of your house is critical. To the extent that your house is shielded using the surrounding mountains, you will be greatly protected. Houses that are built underground offer good protection, as do houses with basements. It is important to note that EMF sensitive individuals can still have health problems in basements and other underground structures. Again, improper wiring is a cause of many unnecessary EMF exposures. Additionally, basements frequently house the main electrical panel and major appliances such as water heaters, which generate large EMF fields.