"Dirty Electricity"

[arcfault]

Is it an issue? Is it just snakeoil?

No doubt, there's some snakeoil claims and sales with it. But it does appear to be a real thing. How important, I'm not sure. I could see some significant noise over mains wires making fairly strong signals within a home, possibly enough to cause trouble. But I have no data either way on it.

At least the meters and filters appear to "do something" and be measurable. But whether or not there's a significant impact on human health, I don't know.

[Shonky]

An issue in what sense? And where you are is significant also.

Yes there will be noise and distortion and where I live THD is typically around 3 or 4% on the voltage waveform. You can clearly see it just looking at the waveform.

If you're talking about over/undervoltage then that can be damaging of course.

There's multiple types of "power quality" you can consider but "dirty" to me implies noise and distortion specifically.

Properly designed devices will be largely immune to typical levels mentioned. They are supposed to be designed to be immune to certain levels and also not emit. Remember a significant majority of home devices run off rectified, filtered DC from the AC lines. Resistive heating won't care. AC motors won't really care either.

So for the most part I would say snake oil on magical filters etc. Unless power is dramatically bad there is usually no need.

As for health, no impact. Well no impact that wouldn't have already been there from "clean" power. Snake oil there too.

[aeberbach]

It can make a difference. I once had some mono tube amps powered by a half-wave rectifier tube and one big choke - in an apartment building you could easily hear when ovens and washing machines clicked on, deficient power supply sure but it was audible. Ham radio operators will be much more aware of the effect of imperfect power on what they hear. Your modern home stereo gear though? Probably little to no effect.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ham+radio+dishwasher+noise

Can't see how health could be affected? Why would a pure sine wave be any better (or worse) than something else?

[Haenk]

In general terms, I can't see any influence on health; other than influencing health support devices (which by themselves should be really well protected against line noise).

But otherwise, a line filter makes sense. That's why almost every newer device has one built in, being more or less effective.

[RJSV]

   It's always ironic, with the woowoo science....no one can answer in terms similar to 'Ionizing radiation' in more extreme cases, to, in milder situations, somehow forgetting to employ your basic measures:
   That is, VOLTAGE, and Volts per Meter (field strength).

   Many of the WOOWOO science crowd make (ridiculous) claims such as 'a frequency that CANNOT be measured'.
WOW, unmeasurable!   That must be really unhealthy.  A neighbor here talks woowoo a lot.  I prefer terms like 'field strength in volts per meter',  then maybe we can talk about 'dirty danger'.

[Ben321]

Is it an issue? Is it just snakeoil?

No doubt, there's some snakeoil claims and sales with it. But it does appear to be a real thing. How important, I'm not sure. I could see some significant noise over mains wires making fairly strong signals within a home, possibly enough to cause trouble. But I have no data either way on it.

At least the meters and filters appear to "do something" and be measurable. But whether or not there's a significant impact on human health, I don't know.

Dirty electricity can be a real thing, and can cause interference with radio reception.