That doesn't seem to fit with my mother's description of ball lightning. She saw one when she was young, but she wasn't hit by anything, she just saw it rolling over the street. In fact she was in a tram (streetcar) when she saw it.
In the photo see how there are multiple blue purple ground leaders to the left of the main strike. I think this might be what got you. The main strike would go down the wet exterior of your house.
Did your friend see any corona or similar leaders?
Note the absence of any ball lightning in the photo. Rare stuff that ball lightning. With all the CCTV these days its surprisingly rare and seems to be camera shy.
Mine either...... what I saw in my youth was a slow traveling (floating) glowing sphere (about 8” or so)
It came from inside the horse stalls we had under the barn (half basement) Thing is it never exploded or hit anything it just petered out after maybe 10 seconds of float time. I was about 8’ from it and could feel the static in the air and it hummed a little. But other than a total wtf at the moment there was no residual affects.
The purple stuff was probably in my brain, a secondary effect.
I noted today on my finger blue Xs at the knuckle and a burnt hole on the side where the finger is attached to the palm.
All this is very minor, but yes, it seems the ground of the chandelier chain is offering almost zero protection...
So I will do something to remove it, but there is a severe storm coming in 1 hour
I noted today on my finger blue Xs at the knuckle and a burnt hole on the side where the finger is attached to the palm.
All this is very minor, but yes, it seems the ground of the chandelier chain is offering almost zero protection...
So I will do something to remove it, but there is a severe storm coming in 1 hour
The purple stuff was probably in my brain, a secondary effect.
I noted today on my finger blue Xs at the knuckle and a burnt hole on the side where the finger is attached to the palm.
All this is very minor, but yes, it seems the ground of the chandelier chain is offering almost zero protection...
So I will do something to remove it, but there is a severe storm coming in 1 hour
i guess lightning voltages wont bother to follow grounding wiring when they can ionise a direct vertically orientated path along the field potential
your burn marks and muscle spasm suggest there was enough current to move internally and your lucky to be alive
good luck taking down the chandelier safely - gravity plus a ladder is the main risk
Yes, after few readings it looks like not a lightening near the house but more a farer ligthening that travelled through a line, hence the brightening of domestic light. The heard buzz was indeed ionisated air due to the weather. Ionisated channel went towards the body from a near source, electric line of the house, phone line, tv line or satelite one. Sometimes it can comes from a near wall, ionisation again, water point in the house or copper water tubes not grounded... Electronic active parts are more sensible than simpliest electric ones like maybe the tubes amp that didn t break...If there were switched on pc or tv they probably collapse from this sudden intensity if no domestic lightening intensity protection. This last wouldn t work if the lightening falls or climbs from soil towards the cloud because of induction of electromagnetic coupling.
In the Gabdx case I assume ionisated tunnel called channels in meteo litterature went towards him, maybe helped by an open window, open fire place, or close wall or windows then attracted by the electric potential of his body ...which was perhaps greater than his friend's?! Sometimes the soil around the house is more humud than the close neighbour or low current electric line were on the path of the traveling intensity first.
The lightening probably fail on a high voltage pillar or near the local transformer of the area.
In the Gabdx case I assume ionisated tunnel called channels in meteo litterature went towards him, maybe helped by an open window, open fire place, or close wall or windows then attracted by the electric potential of his body ...which was perhaps greater than his friend's?! Sometimes the soil around the house is more humud than the close neighbour or low current electric line were on the path of the traveling intensity first.
The lightening probably fail on a high voltage pillar or near the local transformer of the area.
this starts to make a lot of sense.
On the floor there is a grass rectangle full of water which was built for my dog (who still insists to go outside in the worst weather conditions) It doesn't show in the picture. the patio door was opened too, and a lot of pots and plants also close to the door.
+ there was the vinyl washer full of water, this was enough to ionize the air...
It was installed by an electrician, so I think another electrician should remove it.
On the floor there is a grass rectangle full of water which was built for my dog (who still insists to go outside in the worst weather conditions) It doesn't show in the picture. the patio door was opened too, and a lot of pots and plants also close to the door.
+ there was the vinyl washer full of water, this was enough to ionize the air...
It was installed by an electrician, so I think another electrician should remove it.
What i would like to know is about near lightening towards the soil near a local transformer or near the Earth rod of the house enough??
As the neutral is also grounded in the local area transformer does it create a sort of loop that could flow into the neutral conductors of the house ??
Sometimes there also greed plug walls inversion of the wires, neutral instead hot and if this line is isolated on its own diferential interuptor (dunno the word in english) the chandelar or light line above the table were the only equipment switched on where the neutral could be inverted between this interuptor in your electrical box and the two lights near your body?
Any competent electrician here to enlight us?
Well I guess it s usefull when storms come to deplug the electronical sensitive equipment, phones, tv antennas from their plug at one meter to avoid induction coupling from the lines? Anyway if the lightenings fall in the garden or the lightening roof rod the magnetic induction coupling will kill anyway your electroning equipments?
As the neutral is also grounded in the local area transformer does it create a sort of loop that could flow into the neutral conductors of the house ??
Sometimes there also greed plug walls inversion of the wires, neutral instead hot and if this line is isolated on its own diferential interuptor (dunno the word in english) the chandelar or light line above the table were the only equipment switched on where the neutral could be inverted between this interuptor in your electrical box and the two lights near your body?
Any competent electrician here to enlight us?
Well I guess it s usefull when storms come to deplug the electronical sensitive equipment, phones, tv antennas from their plug at one meter to avoid induction coupling from the lines? Anyway if the lightenings fall in the garden or the lightening roof rod the magnetic induction coupling will kill anyway your electroning equipments?
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I can't see any reason to disconnect the chandelier ground, that just makes it unsafe in the event of an insulation failure in a socket or wiring, and will have no effect in the event of another nearby strike. (The insulation in the wiring will not stop this from occurring in the future if you have another strike. Also a violation of electrical code.)
Lightning strikes are high dvdt events and several things happen to your house wiring, currents can be induced into nearby wiring even if lightning does not strike them, and the house wiring has appreciable inductance and resistance relative to the electrical characteristics of a strike. There will be very large voltage differentials between any two points in the ground including the point where you are standing and where your grounding system is connected to earth ground. (Not to mention you and nearby objects.)
If you are really concerned a proper professionally installed air terminal system offers the best and only real protection against a repeat event.
We had a near miss (5 meters) from our house a few years ago which resulted in a bunch of things breaking in our house and all over the neighborhood in the weeks that followed.
Last summer a lightning induced transient wiped out the input amplifiers in my electronic cross-overs due to a differential ground current. (Balanced I/O and no dc grounds between the processor and cross-overs.)
Lightning strikes are high dvdt events and several things happen to your house wiring, currents can be induced into nearby wiring even if lightning does not strike them, and the house wiring has appreciable inductance and resistance relative to the electrical characteristics of a strike. There will be very large voltage differentials between any two points in the ground including the point where you are standing and where your grounding system is connected to earth ground. (Not to mention you and nearby objects.)
If you are really concerned a proper professionally installed air terminal system offers the best and only real protection against a repeat event.
We had a near miss (5 meters) from our house a few years ago which resulted in a bunch of things breaking in our house and all over the neighborhood in the weeks that followed.
Last summer a lightning induced transient wiped out the input amplifiers in my electronic cross-overs due to a differential ground current. (Balanced I/O and no dc grounds between the processor and cross-overs.)
Wow....Have to say I have no Earth yet but in the kitchen and bathroom and their copper water tubes and robinets are not tied together nore earthed...
I didn't write to unplug the ground wire, sorry my english I meant to unplug the device from the wall grid. So you mean it's unsafe to have any metal things not grounded in a room also if passive or unconnected? ( Chandelier tied to Earth saved op and eventually may have kill him if the wires had no conection to the wall? Cause anyway metal chandelier was a terminal where inducted electricity traveled from op body to it but not ending in the Earth was the worst scenario?)
Well I assume nobody is concerned till it's happen. Lightenings fuses for farest lightenings making intensity peaks safe for electical devices and air terminal systdm is to force local lightening to travel through it ? No induction either between the air terminal and house devices (on the roof and well tied to the Earth with checked resistivity) ?
I didn't write to unplug the ground wire, sorry my english I meant to unplug the device from the wall grid. So you mean it's unsafe to have any metal things not grounded in a room also if passive or unconnected? ( Chandelier tied to Earth saved op and eventually may have kill him if the wires had no conection to the wall? Cause anyway metal chandelier was a terminal where inducted electricity traveled from op body to it but not ending in the Earth was the worst scenario?)
Well I assume nobody is concerned till it's happen. Lightenings fuses for farest lightenings making intensity peaks safe for electical devices and air terminal systdm is to force local lightening to travel through it ? No induction either between the air terminal and house devices (on the roof and well tied to the Earth with checked resistivity) ?
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You're not the OP to whom my comments were addressed.. This is why it sometimes can be a good idea to start your own thread.
diyiggy I'm not sure where you are located so I don't know how code differs between the U.S./Canada and where you are.
It's not a bad idea if code permits to bond all of your copper water pipe to the house electrical ground. (Exception is if PEX tubing is used and copper is the last cms to the fixture like a sink or bathtub) This should be done by a licensed electrician.
This is why it sometimes can be a good idea to start your own thread.diyiggy I'm not sure where you are located so I don't know how code differs between the U.S./Canada and where you are.
It's not a bad idea if code permits to bond all of your copper water pipe to the house electrical ground. (Exception is if PEX tubing is used and copper is the last cms to the fixture like a sink or bathtub) This should be done by a licensed electrician.
I didn't understand it was for the op. Sorry if I'm out of topic. No own thread needed I'm interested by a rational explanation of what happen to gabdx and how to fix it. It drives me to make some google researchs as I didn't think such an event may happen
Thank you anyway for the advice, think it's a very good idea for anyone to check domestical electrical instalation with the most recents norms of your country.
Thank you anyway for the advice, think it's a very good idea for anyone to check domestical electrical instalation with the most recents norms of your country.
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> So you mean it's unsafe to have any metal things not grounded in a room also if passive or unconnected?
The basic rule is that ALL conductors (even poor ones like concrete) *should* be connected to Earth.
There are MANY specific schemes and rules and exceptions. Consult the most experienced local electrician you can find.
Usually all conducty objects go to a Dirt Rod. In the confused US tradition, each service (building) has a dirt rod(s), although in self-defense the power utility also has multiple dirt electrodes. I understand that in much of Europe the power utility supplies a Safety Ground which the homeowner must rely upon.
While not often enforced, "ALL" conductive surfaces includes non-electric stuff like metal siding. There was a case where a siding nail hit a wire. The siding did not come down to ground, so the side of the house was 120V hot. I don't know how nobody objected until a worker went up a metal ladder and was thrown from it. If the siding had been bonded to safety ground (but there is no good way to do that) then that wire-biting nail would have blown the circuit fuse.
The point is more obvious for metal electrical fixtures, metal cook-stoves, metal heating radiators, metal piping, and of course metal cases on our audio toys.
While Safety Ground returns to the power utility (because most everyday faults are energized by utility power), in some areas G does not return directly to any of the load-wires in wall-outlets. In 3-phase power it is sometimes done to take all loads from the 3 legs, with the center of the wYe at dirt potential. The load wires are *both* 100++V away from dirt.
Exceptions: around cows (in the US) there are special exceptions because cows are ultra-sensitive to mild leakage a human would not feel. And in steel-mills it is common to run rolling-mill motors on insulators with NO ground connection. Their insulation inevitably fails. If a short blew a fuse, tons of soft hot steel hardens in the rollers, a massive loss. Instead ground monitors tell the operator that a motor's insulation has failed, so he may finish the run and roll the steel out before a second motor fails.
Lighting is different. Yes, if lightning hits electrical gear which returns to a good ground, *some* of the strike goes to dirt relatively harmlessly. But electricity takes ALL paths, more in the easy ones but some in the less-easy paths. And the ENERGY in a lighting strike is SO much bigger than common power loads, and has such a fast rise time, that it may not take the "easy" path as much as we hope. Weird things happen.
The basic rule is that ALL conductors (even poor ones like concrete) *should* be connected to Earth.
There are MANY specific schemes and rules and exceptions. Consult the most experienced local electrician you can find.
Usually all conducty objects go to a Dirt Rod. In the confused US tradition, each service (building) has a dirt rod(s), although in self-defense the power utility also has multiple dirt electrodes. I understand that in much of Europe the power utility supplies a Safety Ground which the homeowner must rely upon.
While not often enforced, "ALL" conductive surfaces includes non-electric stuff like metal siding. There was a case where a siding nail hit a wire. The siding did not come down to ground, so the side of the house was 120V hot. I don't know how nobody objected until a worker went up a metal ladder and was thrown from it. If the siding had been bonded to safety ground (but there is no good way to do that) then that wire-biting nail would have blown the circuit fuse.
The point is more obvious for metal electrical fixtures, metal cook-stoves, metal heating radiators, metal piping, and of course metal cases on our audio toys.
While Safety Ground returns to the power utility (because most everyday faults are energized by utility power), in some areas G does not return directly to any of the load-wires in wall-outlets. In 3-phase power it is sometimes done to take all loads from the 3 legs, with the center of the wYe at dirt potential. The load wires are *both* 100++V away from dirt.
Exceptions: around cows (in the US) there are special exceptions because cows are ultra-sensitive to mild leakage a human would not feel. And in steel-mills it is common to run rolling-mill motors on insulators with NO ground connection. Their insulation inevitably fails. If a short blew a fuse, tons of soft hot steel hardens in the rollers, a massive loss. Instead ground monitors tell the operator that a motor's insulation has failed, so he may finish the run and roll the steel out before a second motor fails.
Lighting is different. Yes, if lightning hits electrical gear which returns to a good ground, *some* of the strike goes to dirt relatively harmlessly. But electricity takes ALL paths, more in the easy ones but some in the less-easy paths. And the ENERGY in a lighting strike is SO much bigger than common power loads, and has such a fast rise time, that it may not take the "easy" path as much as we hope. Weird things happen.
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The 2 lamps beside me were on, the chandelier was off. We had a severe storm with lot of lightnings yesterday and everything was fine. (I stayed outside to eat alone, I was afraid...)
the best explanation is that grounding is not enough to prevent the air being ionized considering the interesting distance for lightning covered with the chain, it is just a giant lightning rod, with improper grounding (electrical code blabla is not enough in this case obviously)
We never had a problem, maybe I had one little surge if I remember one day vaguely in 20 years.
So what happened the other day is that some lightning fell in the yard somewhere, just a very small strike, and it became dissipated in many places, some electricity came from the house ground, some through the lamps, and it obviously used the chandelier metal chain and wires to carry some force.
Fortunately the ground was very effective to provide another path than myself, so I was only briefly used as a bridge.
So, yes, I was actually struck by a very mild lightning, it hurt very much after, but during the shock I almost passed out.
The most logical thing to do is to remove that freaking thing.
the best explanation is that grounding is not enough to prevent the air being ionized considering the interesting distance for lightning covered with the chain, it is just a giant lightning rod, with improper grounding (electrical code blabla is not enough in this case obviously)
We never had a problem, maybe I had one little surge if I remember one day vaguely in 20 years.
So what happened the other day is that some lightning fell in the yard somewhere, just a very small strike, and it became dissipated in many places, some electricity came from the house ground, some through the lamps, and it obviously used the chandelier metal chain and wires to carry some force.
Fortunately the ground was very effective to provide another path than myself, so I was only briefly used as a bridge.
So, yes, I was actually struck by a very mild lightning, it hurt very much after, but during the shock I almost passed out.
The most logical thing to do is to remove that freaking thing.
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We will never know for sure if the lightning strike was direct or propagated into the house via street electrical lines.
Speculating on the cause might be life saving.
I think its very unlikely the entry was via street power lines. I would expect damage to appliances and house wiring. Also can expect the entire home wiring would carry much the same voltage so less likely there will be high voltage differential causing ionising discharge.
It seems more likely the lightning was direct with the vertical field extending up the light chain and the ionising voltage gap reduced by the generous human conductor sitting under the chain.
One conclusion is the chain is acting as a partial lightning rod and stopping the desired Faraday cage effect. The chain should be removed.
@gabx - whats above the chain? Is it attic space or a second story, a flat roof or a pitched roof? Whats under the floor below the chain?
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