What I have changed since installing Pi-hole:
I've added two access points, both TP-Link C80 routers, this is roughly the same time my requests went from 2,000~ a day to 17,000 a day
Not that i'm aware of. it is possible that my Access points are pinging local to check connectivity. The increase in ping requests happened around the same time I updated my access points.
> grep local /var/log/pihole.log | tail -n20
Jan 12 13:46:44 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:44 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:44 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:44 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:50 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:50 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:51 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:51 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:51 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:51 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:52 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:52 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:52 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:52 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:53 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:53 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:54 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:54 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
Jan 12 13:46:55 dnsmasq[5615]: query[SOA] local from 127.0.0.1
Jan 12 13:46:55 dnsmasq[5615]: forwarded local to 1.1.1.1
SOA is Start of Authority. Something is asking for the validity or the nameserver responsible for .local. This is usually a mDNS/Bonjour domain. Are you using .local as a domain name for your lan or devices on your lan?