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Thread: Lightning Struck House Twice While Eating Supper. DESTROYED STOVE

  1. #1
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Lightning Struck House Twice While Eating Supper. DESTROYED STOVE

    Sorry, couldn't help the all caps stuff. lol

    My wife and I were eating supper last week and a very strong storm came over the house. Thunder, torrential rain and lightning all around. We heard a loud CRACK and the lights dimmed but stayed on. A few seconds later another loud CRACK with an immediate BOOOM. We looked at each other and she said she could feel static electricity on her feet.

    We looked around and noticed the oven light on. What The ....? Oven and stove top would not light and then after looking about the lights in the laundry room would not come on.

    Seems the lightning hit the rods on top of the house but managed to trip the GFS outlet in the laundry room which I have the overhead wired through with enough power to bypass the circuit breaker. No worries, just reset the outlet and the lights came right on. The stove was another story. I had forgotten that when we put the propane stove in I had to use a 3/2 outlet plug because the fridge plugged into the outlet below it and both would not fit. Fridge was fine but the lightning surge blew out the circuit board on the stove/oven as well as the oven temp control. $100 to replace those.

    Learned a lesson, though. All outlets that will have any type of electronics plugged into them will be replaced with GFS outlets as a precaution to back up the circuit breakers. The computer already has a lightning certified breaker bar but I think I'll just do that one too.
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    Winger Ed.'s Avatar
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    Wow.

    We've had storms blow in that could zap their way through surge protectors and eat up computers and answering machines.
    I started un plugging them when lightening comes through.
    Last edited by Winger Ed.; 08-18-2019 at 10:55 PM.
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  3. #3
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    garandsrus's Avatar
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    Be careful with the fridge, they are normally wired upstream of the GFI for the rest of the kitchen. It can be tripped when the fridge starts up if the fridge is after the GFI.

  4. #4
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Yeah, it was pretty weird that those were the only things that happened. None of the other circuits tripped. We have a 100 amp box on the outside of the house that is grounded and the one in the house is also grounded with a copper rod I pounded in myself with sledge. The lightning rods on top of the house I was going to take down when we had the roof done but decided to let them stay and I guess it's a good thing that we did.
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  5. #5
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by garandsrus View Post
    Be careful with the fridge, they are normally wired upstream of the GFI for the rest of the kitchen. It can be tripped when the fridge starts up if the fridge is after the GFI.
    I wired the house myself. The fridge and the stove are on the breaker by themselves. I pulled the old double breaker for the electric stove off when I replaced it with propane and had extra slots left so just put that box all by itself on one breaker.
    I Am Descended From Men Who Would Not Be Ruled

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    I lost power probably that same storm, Duke sending me txt on the phone, it was about 45mins and the lights came back on and they said it was a tree down on the line. I bet it was the same storm cell that hit your house. This was Tuesday this past week the 13th 4:30pm.
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  7. #7
    Boolit Master

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    Back to back strikes thats crazy. Lighting sure is powerful. Many years ago lighting hit just 10-15 feet from my brother and myself. It looked like a wall of fire. Also it went through the 100 amp breaker in the basement. Burnt a hole clean through that thing.

  8. #8
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    Lightning hit a tree about 30 yards from my house last week

    I had to change my shorts

  9. #9
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    About ten years ago we had a storm that either hit my shop or was incredibly close. It blew 3-4 asphalt shingles of off the roof, which I never found and sent the wall phone across the shop. Needless to say the phone was toast.
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  10. #10
    Boolit Grand Master

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    I'm glad you and your Wife were not injured and that your house was not more seriously damaged. Lightning is bad stuff! As a retired lineman, I have seen a lot of lightning damage.

  11. #11
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    Glad y'all are okay...lightning, as the saying goes, always strikes twice
    ...Speak softly & carry a big stick...

  12. #12
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    My thoughts..

    Lightning when it hits has no plan. I've seen instances where it took out a computer in one room and another room wasn't touched. TV's can end up with power supply damage or display driver board damage or the damage can be hid for a month or two and then rear its ugly head. Lightning rods were all the fad on farms when I was growing up. Do they do any good? Its questionable. If put up properly with the correct wire then can be beneficial and if not you've wasted your money. There is no way to lightning proof a home as lightning does not follow any set rules so to speak.

  13. #13
    Boolit Master

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    I live in one of the most lightning active places in America - East Central Florida - where the NASA study of lightning is of particular interest to the Space Program. I asked my home builder why more lightning and grounding grids are not installed on residential construction? His answer was "Why invite a lightning strike?"

    What is lightning anyway but the immense flow of charged electrons from ground to cloud and cloud to ground.

    The probability of lightning hitting a house without lightning protection is very small as taller trees with pointed tips are the most likely dissipaters. The probability of lightning hitting a house WITH lightning "protection" is significantly greater when concentrating the movement of electrons from ground to cloud or cloud to ground by inviting the electrons (lightning) to use the rods on the house.

    Twice on your house in short succession? I am thinking the lightning was concentrated and invited itself onto your rods.

    NASA LIGHTNING PRIMER - Types of Discharge (pg. 4)
    Description of Lightning Discharge Process

    With the initial breakdown of the air in a region of strong electric fields, a streamer may begin to propagate downward toward the Earth. It moves in discrete steps of about 50 meters each and is called a stepped leader. As it grows, it creates an ionized path depositing charge along the channel, and as the stepped leader nears the Earth, a large potential difference is generated between the end of the leader and the Earth. Typically, a streamer is launched from the Earth and intercepts the descending stepped leader just before it reaches the ground. Once a connecting path is achieved, a return stroke flies up the already ionized path at close to the speed of light. This return stroke releases tremendous energy, bright light, and thunder.
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  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    You need to have your lightning rod system checked. Most should be replaced after a strike.

  15. #15
    Boolit Master
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    summer 1998 middle of night thunder storm I awoke to the sound of hissing and glanced out the bedroom window and noticed a lite blue halo around our TV antenna. The n all sorts of flash, silence, and an incredible kaboom. The bedroom filled instantly with smoke, the wife and I bailed out of bed and down the stairs we went (2 storey brick house steel roof) and out the front door in the rain. We lived out of town nearest neighbors about 2 miles away, so my wife waited in the work shop, and I took a look for a fire and found nothing but still was leary to return to the house, talk about apprehensive, the phone was down ,no power, 2 new vehicles in the yard that wouldn't start, all we could do was wait till dawn. Wow ! there was a rip in the steel roof 3'x2, all the fascia nails had arc tracks on them, the wet brick had been surface scaled, all the plugs had the wires burned off and the mains were blown right out of the electrical panel all said and done every electrical item was destroyed including the electronics of the vehicles in the door yard. Was glad we had paid up on the insurance that year.

  16. #16
    Boolit Master

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    I rewired our house in the early 90's, when we moved in there were 9 fuse boxes all with small wire between them and you could cascade fuse blows. We went from 100 amp to 225 amp service and I installed a good box, good breakers and good wire. We still continued to lose small electronics in every bad storm. I installed a whole house suppression system and have not lost any more electronics since '92. I could not recommend a suppression device more. Takes a dedicated ground rod and wire and 2 breaker slots. Well worth it!

  17. #17
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Lighting struck our house and we lost the stove , refg./freezer , heating & a/c unit , washing machine , dryer and computer . Everything that has a computer board in it was fried . For some reason our old television sets , two of them and old freezer were spared .
    Everything else had to have a new computer board replaced .
    The computer board for our refg. / freezer cost $500.00 ...installed .

    I still hate computer stuff most of the time . $500.00 sounds way to pricey , that board wasn't
    1 1/2" x 3 1/2" , came from China and was just a big computer/China rip off !

    Everything that needs it has a surge protection unit installed , I don't want to go through that again .

    My house was built in 1929 so it doesn't have the most up to date lightening protection on it .
    Gary
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  18. #18
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    Lightning struck the ancient maple tree in my neighbor's yard 2 years ago. It debarked 1/2 the tree which went through the siding on my garage like shrapnel.

    I knew a Sgt in the Army by the name of Crissman who was in a group strike with another dozen soldiers at Ft Benning during basic. He had 10 years in and the Army was still conducting a long term health study on the group.

    The power of Lightning is quite impressive indeed.
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    No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.

  19. #19
    Boolit Master
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    We’re on the end of the line, out in the country. First strike house new and all new appliances taken out. All in warranty fixed. Second strike took out phone,well, computer etc. electric co. Said they had a lightning protector to install under meter base for $5.00 per month. That has paid off twice since installation. Now there not supporting that any more said you cant stop lightning. It goes where it wants to go, praying we don’t get hit again.

  20. #20
    Boolit Master
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    For a few years I vanpooled with a career electrician, later electrician asst. superintendant. Most of his experience was in power plants, switchyards, etc. - the big stuff. He told me that lightning is completely unpredictable. Despite proper grounding and lightning protection, he told me he had seen what would appear to be disastrous lightning strikes that did little damage, and he had seen equipment fried by strikes that they couldn't even figure out where it came into the system.

    I came so close to getting struck by lightning years ago that I could hear the loud snap and smell the ozone, so I have complete respect for it; I figure I've had my warning shot, but that's a story for another thread.

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