Lightening

[LSMFT]

If lightening hit my well head, a pipe about 2 feet tall with a cap sticking out of the ground, can it follow the pipe down to the water, come in to the pump and out to my show head and zap me?

[gpsman]

Yup. -----

- gpsman

[Steve Barker]

nope

[mm]

Well, lightning (no e) can go almost anywhere it "wants" but it's headed to the earth. Since most of your pipe down to the water is underground, and the earch around the pipe isn't bone dry or even very dry (is it?) I doubt it would do that. I think it would head from the pipe straight to the ground. But what do I know?

Also lightning tends to hit high things and pointed things. If your well is nearer your house than the height of the house, or nearer a tree than the height of the tree, it might not be too attractive.

And your pipe and cap are probably not pointed.

There was a lightning hotline 25 years ago. Maybe it's still around. OTOH, the person on the phone kept assuming I lived in Florida and seemed to wonder why I was asking if I didn't live in Florida.

[Red]

Metal or PVC pipe? Assuming you mean metal, it would be highly unlikely but possible. It is looking for ground and it found it so why would it go back up to your shower? However if the whole volume of water built up a charge (unlikely), it may be possible. The whole scenario changes though if the lightning hits the house instead of the well head pipe.

[HeyBub]

Actually the "point" is to deter lightning by streaming negatively charged ions in the rod's vicinity. In this sense, it actually repels lightning. If the lightning bolt does not take the hint, however, the rod - with or without a point - will attempt to channel the current to the earth.

[DerbyDad03]

Since anything is poosible, just to be safe, I have a suggestion.

Avoid the possibility by not using the shower if lightning (no e) might occur.

Instead, go outside in the rain and wash up au natural.

I believe that there's a pipe about 2 feet tall with a cap sticking out of the ground that you could rest your soap and shampoo on.

[hibb]

I try to stay out of the shower when lightening is in the area.

I remember one instance in our area where lightning hit a tree that was 30 feet or more from a feller's house. The lightning followed the shallow roots of the tree right over to the foundation of the house, went up the wall of the house and popped open a hole in the drywall just above the head of the sleeping homeowner in his bedroom. Lightning is flat out unpredictable.

[hrhofmann]

Do you mean lightning?? Lightening is what Michael Jackson did to his skin.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I've seen three rather strong instances with lightning that would keep me out of the shower. In all three cases, the strike was close enough to cause a scare or damage.

1. The utility pole outside on the street is the last one on the street and it has a guy wire to anchor it on the side with no lines. When a strike hit, there was enough power to blow out a trough of dirt from the cable to the curb and blow out a 6" hunk of curbing. Power was not lost.
2. During a storm, lighting hit someplace nearby. My family room slider has an aluminum frame at ground level. There was an arc that went from the door frame to the baseboard heat under the sofa, a distance of about 6 feet.
3. About 6 weeks ago, it hit someplace outside. The arc(s) burned a hole in the downspout where it was a few inches from a spotlight fixture. It burned the bulbs, the inside plug and a controller and receptacle, travelled from the detached garage, back into the house, blew out a breaker in the main panel and took out my TV, Receiver, doorbell, DSL modem.

In all cases, the hit was never pinpointed but the power surge was enough to show its ugly head. Could have been 10 feet, 100 feet, or a half mile. I'd stay out of the shower.

[clare]

Several times in the old farmhouse my mother grew up in, lightning hit the cistern pump at the back of the house, jumpedthrough the doorway to the aluminum edge trim of the kitchen counter, from there to the Findlay Oval cookstove, and from there to the sink which was grounded to the wellwater pump - blowing chips of enamel off the stove and the sink each time.

Hit the old oak tree in front of the house numerous times too. - and the lightning rods on both the house and the barn. The farmstead stood (actually still stands) on a hill - out in the open with nothing else around, about a mile and a half downstream of the Conestoga Dam in Ontario Canada - and the old oak was about 3 times as tall as the farmhouse.

[ShadowTek]

Once, I was playing Nintendo during a thunderstorm, holding a controller with my sweat soaked hands, and I received a light shock through the controller when lightning struck off in the distance.

It seemed so odd considering that the strike wasn't even very close. There were at lest several seconds delay between light and sound.

[mm]

Wow to all these stories. How long between the light and the shock you felt?

[aemeijers]

Shrug. Induced current. Back in dial-up days, I once lost a modem to a distant lightning strike, even though the phones kept working fine. They said it was likely the local loop acting as antenna for the stray current. In your case, if the TV had a roof antenna, you acting as a ground probably kept the TV from getting fried. I presume it was on one of those gametv RF modulator switch boxes?

-- aem sends...

[Metspitzer]

Was it a USRobitics modem? I had lightning hit mine twice. They replaced it both times. It would burn out the phone port but all the lights still worked. My phones were unaffected as well. I should have taken that as a warning, but I didn't.

I had a lightning hit again and burned up two computers through the LAN cards. Both the phone and the cable were bonded to the copper water pipe.

I ended up driving a separate ground rod for the copper pipe in my basement and bonding it to my existing ground rod.

[Caesar Romano]

Yes.

[jw]

Yea, but it would be best if he lays down on his back, rather than standing up like in a shower. Lightning hits the highest object, so if he lays down there is less chance of getting hit. However, a word of caution. DO NOT lay down near a "sexy" member of the opposite sex. If he begins getting an erection, his dick becomes the highest object. And if lightning strikes, there goes the family jewels up in smoke....

[Jeff The Drunk]

A proximity strike can energize you plumbing. You decide from there.

[Tony]

LOL, I didn't catch that.

[Tony]

It is possible but most of it would *probably* take the path through the casing and into the ground. I don't shower during a thunderstorm.