# Carbon or nickel shielding paint

> A conductive coating applied to walls and ceilings, quoted at 30–40 dB in the cellular bands; it must be bonded to a grounded conductive strip to also control low-frequency electric fields.

- Canonical URL: https://emfbase.com/shielding/paint
- Collection: Shielding & remediation
- Record id: `shielding:shielding-paint`
- Status: verified
- Last verified: 2026-08-12
- JSON: https://emfbase.com/api/shielding/paint
- Also known as: EMF paint, shielding primer, carbon paint, Y-Shield

## Key values

- **Form:** paint
- **Targets:** radiofrequency, elf electric
- **Grounding required:** Yes — ungrounded installation can make things worse
- **Datasheet attenuation:** 30–40 dB — roughly 900 MHz – 6 GHz, two coats, datasheet values [sbm-2024]

## Failure modes

- Ungrounded conductive paint can raise the AC electric field in the room by acting as a floating conductor
- Windows, doors and service penetrations bypass the coating entirely — the wall is rarely the dominant path
- Coating one wall while the signal arrives through the window produces no measurable improvement
- Overpainting with metallic or foil-backed products changes the result unpredictably

## Related records

- [RF-attenuating window film](https://emfbase.com/shielding/window-film): A metallised film bonded to glazing, typically quoted at 20–35 dB, and usually the highest-value single intervention because glass is the dominant entry path for outdoor RF.
- [Shielding verification](https://emfbase.com/protocols/shielding-verification): How to prove a shielding measure worked: identical instrument, position and source conditions before and after, reported in dB as well as in absolute units.

## Sources

- `sbm-2024` Institut für Baubiologie + Nachhaltigkeit (IBN) (2024). *Building Biology Evaluation Guidelines for Sleeping Areas (SBM-2024)*. https://buildingbiology.com/site/downloads/SBM-2024_EVALUATION_GUIDELINES_EN.pdf — ngo, link checked 2026-08-12

Data licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Dataset version 2026.08.1. Retrieved from EMFBase, https://emfbase.com.

This record is reference data, not medical or legal advice. Regulatory limits, scientific guidelines and precautionary values are labelled separately and answer different questions.