Faraday cage to block cellphone/Wifi?

[Philippe Elskens]

Hi,
I was wondering if I could make my house a big Faraday cage capable of blocking Wifi and cellphone signals from the outside by covering all of the inside walls with chicken wire? How big of a problem is it that windows would stay uncovered? Or that electrical wiring inside the wall (so outside of the F cage) would come inside to the wall sockets (so penetrate the cage)?

 

[berkeman]

Hi,
I was wondering if I could make my house a big Faraday cage capable of blocking Wifi and cellphone signals from the outside by covering all of the inside walls with chicken wire? How big of a problem is it that windows would stay uncovered? Or that electrical wiring inside the wall (so outside of the F cage) would come inside to the wall sockets (so penetrate the cage)?

Welcome to the PF.

Openings in the shield degrade its effectiveness, and any wires that come in from outside without being filtered will also degrade the shielding effect. Also, you would need to weld the seams of the wire mesh where they come together, in order to have a good continuous conductor. Look at these shielded rooms:

http://www.ets-lindgren.com/RFShieldedEnclosures

Is there a reason that you don't want to have cell phone or WiFi reception inside your home?

 

[davenn]

Hi,
I was wondering if I could make my house a big Faraday cage capable of blocking Wifi and cellphone signals from the outside by covering all of the inside walls with chicken wire?

Is there a reason that you don't want to have cell phone or WiFi reception inside your home?

looking forward to a response to that as well Dave

 

[analogdesign]

looking forward to a response to that as well Dave

Obviously he's developing an 802.11 chipset...

 

[bcrowell]

Openings in the shield degrade its effectiveness, and any wires that come in from outside without being filtered will also degrade the shielding effect. Also, you would need to weld the seams of the wire mesh where they come together, in order to have a good continuous conductor. Look at these shielded rooms:

I doubt that you need anything like that kind of coverage in order to get a big reduction in signal strength.

 

[berkeman]

I doubt that you need anything like that kind of coverage in order to get a big reduction in signal strength.

Most good radios that I'm familiar with can work reasonably down to -70dB from full signal strength. That's a lot of needed attenuation to block a signal.

TBH, I don't know how much attenuation is needed for cell phones and WiFi though. Guess I'll do a little searching...

 

[f95toli]

I doubt that you need anything like that kind of coverage in order to get a big reduction in signal strength.

You'd be surprised. My phone works reasonably well inside our shielded room unless absolutely everything is closed and properly sealed. Even the small hatches we sometimes use to get temporary cables in/out of the room need to be sealed up.
Having the phone on inside the room DOES drain the battery of the phone since it needs to increase the power it uses; but it does work.
Phones and WiFi uses all sorts of tricks to get a good connection even under very bad conditions.

 

[davenn]

Phones and WiFi uses all sorts of tricks to get a good connection even under very bad conditions.

but it still can't get 15 - 20m range from one side of my home to the other, with only a couple of dry walls in between ... go figure ??Dave

 

[Philippe Elskens]

Hmm, ok, thanks for the answers!

My plan is to construct a straw bale building. It is recommended to use chicken wire on the walls for plastering. So that is the reason why I'm doing this:-) I was just thinking that it might act as a Faraday cage, which could be an additional advantage with regard to possible health effects...

 

[George Jones]

I would like the washrooms at my university to be enclosed in Faraday cages.