Lightning Strike

11 years ago

Two days ago my next door neighbor's Palm Tree took a direct hit from a lightning strike. The current went into the ground, through my TV and Internet cable and fried the box outside my garage.

The following day I noticed that my sprinkler system did not pop up as scheduled. I was a little skeptical about it being from the lightning, since we didn't even get a power lull or surge. Having said that, I don't see how it could be anything else.

Today I had a water service tech out here and he claims the timer is fried, although there is power to the unit and all the info stored in the timer is still visible, but the zones just won't pop up. He gave me an estimate of $300 just to replace the timer. He said that there is no other way to troubleshoot the problem until we have a working timer.

This means that if there is wire damage, valve damage, etc., we will be way above my ability to afford this repair.

I want to believe that he was actually accurately able to determine that the timer is shot. Assuming he is correct, I ordered a new timer, better than the one he wanted $300.00 to install, for $90, and free overnight shipping.

My hope is that when I install the new timer all will be well. Unfortunately my luck doesn't usually work out that way. If I change out the timer, what would be the next logical place to look? Also, if the wiring needs to be changed out, how difficult is it for someone who has physical problems to run new wire? Luckily the wire runs only about 50 ft., along the edge of the house, to the valve box. I just don't know how far down or how hard it would be to run new wiring.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. It's not a great situation to be both disabled and have very limited funds to work with.

Thanks Folks!

Rick

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Comments (9)

mike1059
11 years ago
Without being able to test the timer I can't be sure but I would have to disagree about it being fried. The problem sounds more like a bad wire connection of the common wire at the valve box. The first thing I would do is redo the connection and see if that takes care of the trouble.
Goosegas
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks Mike-

I will connect the old timer back up and check the connections in the valve box. If it still doesn't work, I will connect the new timer to the setup and see what that does. Any idea what would be next if the system still doesn't turn on...wiring, valves, solenoids?

Also, If I remove the grease caps to check the connections, will I need to get a new set of caps, or is it possible to reuse the caps already there?

Thanks again

Rick
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John: You need to have a professional install a lightning protection system. I can describe mine, as far as I understand it, however. The principle seems to be that all high points of the house must be covered, including anything that projects above a 45 degree angled slope from the highest air terminal. On our house there are two air terminals on the chimney, three running along the highest roof line, all connected by heavy woven/braided copper wire--and I mean heavy. Then from this highest roof line, the wire goes down to one on the peak above our front porch roof. Then there is an additional three across the roofline of our three car garage. All thee are connected, and on three "opposite" sides of the house copper clad posts go 10 feet into the ground--I watched them being put down. Now a rock may have deflected them so they may not be completely 10 feet deep, but it looked like they went all they way down without hitches. OK, seeing the interest in lightning stories, maybe a couple more. This first is one I was told many times, but because I was a baby, I really dont know. But my mother was never one to make up stories or exaggerate--never. When I was a baby I was taking a nap in my crib upstairs. A thunderstorm came up and a bolt of lightning hit a large oak tree outside my window. Shattering a good portion of it. A big sharp pointed chunk of wood came in through the window and imbedded itself in the pillow right next to my head. A number of years ago I was trading storm stories with my neighbor farmer next to my timberland in western MD. He told me of the most fantastic storm he ever saw. He described it as three storms coming from different directions and converging just overhead. I never really believed his description until I saw the storm I described above that hit our house. That storm, from all appearances seemed to converge from three different directions. But it fact, it formed directly overhead, with the lightning seeming to come from three directions at once. The storm the old farmer told me about was much like the one that hit our house in the intensity of lightning and its destruction of property. Before the rain stated it got almost pitch black, and the rain was so heavy that all of the ground (which is rolling, not flat) was so covered with water that couldnt run off fast enough, that it looked like we were in an ocean. How much rain?? I have no idea--our 5.5 inch rain gauge topped out. But again, it was the lightning--I say, literally, 10 times anything I ever saw before. I am always counting lightning/thunder to see the distance of the bolt. In a good thunderstorm something like 5 or 6 within a mile is a lot. In this storm I was unable to make any reasonable count, there were so many so fast upon each other. I would be surprised if there were less than 50 or 60 within a mile of our house--it could have been much more. I think there were a dozen overhead or within 100 feet. It really felt like an all-out WW II bombardment. It didnt seem like a thunderstorm at all--it was just so overwhelming. I almost always go out on our porch to watch storms. This time I went out near the beginning of the storm, practically had my eardrums burst immediately by two or three loud crashes, and before I took one step onto the porch, turned back into the house. One more story--a nice one. I am a big fan of music, especially classical music. This was the most musical storm I ever heard. There was a huge severe thunderstorm just to our west. He thunder was constant, but what was so amazing and beautiful was how each roll of thunder lasted for 30 to maybe even 45 seconds or so, with each one overlapping the previous one, or two, or three, or four. Can you get the idea--the grand rolls of thunder actually made a great cosmic 4 and 5 part fugue. Fugues are one of my favorite musical forms. This thunder was one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard, and it continued at a peak of richness and beauty for a full 30 minutes or so. I could no nothing but stop and listen--thunderstruck, so to speak. Well, I have more, but enough for now. --Spruce
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The magnetic field that accompanies a bolt of lightning is very strong, and can induce voltage in runs of wire. If the voltage is larger than the device can withstand it fails. There are a number of ways to try and protect devices from the induced voltage, but even at $35 a pop it might not be worthwhile. The simplest fix that might work is to use twisted pair wire for the connection to the sensor. The twisting all by itself helps cancel out the magnetic coupling. Next would be shielded twisted pair. EMT would be even more shielding (but only if you use clamp connectors and NOT the set screw connectors). Depending on the design of the device and the voltage you may even be able to place a voltage clamp near the sensor. You need one that has a high enough voltage to not turn on from the regular operation, but turn on at a higher voltage that is still below the damage level.
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Thank you for all the good wishes! He'll be here for another week or so--we'll have to make the most of it! Well, we've been without internet again--it's been intermittent at best, and really not worth the trouble. I think I've mentioned that I've been using internet for only a little over a year, and I'm still timid when it comes to technical issues. We've had three (3!) telephone company repairmen here six times in various combinations, sometimes alone, sometimes two together. Of course, they are here during the day, when my husband is at work, so imagine these poor guys asking me questions, and instructing me to check the modem--a week ago I had no idea where the modem was, let alone that it had lights that tell what it's doing. So, all these guys couldn't figure out the 'intermittent' problems. It seemed to be working when they were here, and all the 'physical' components seemed to be in order, but we would have service for only a short time, then it would quit. We'd re-boot the modem for a few minutes (a couple of hours, if we were lucky) of service, then it was off again. The phone co sent a new modem which didn't solve the problem, and we even unplugged the new remote phone, thinking that it might be the cause. We've had our son here for two weeks, my BIL and his boys haven been around a lot, my younger DD has been here a couple of times, and all their various friends have been coming and going, too, at all hours of the day and night. Except for yesterday: DH, BIL and all the boys went whitewater rafting, DD went to Cleveland with a friend, and I was here on my own (except for 2 yr old grandson) for most of the day. The phone guys checked lines in the early afternoon, and gave me the 'everything's working now' line, so I settled in to try and catch up on email and gardenweb :) My son-in-law called to say that he was coming to pick up grandson later in the evening, and when I returned to the computer, the internet was out. I re-booted the modem, and had no problems for an hour or so, then DH called to say that everyone survived the rafting trip, and they were on the way home. When I returned to the computer, the internet was out again. I re-booted, then shortly my daughter inadvertently slammed the back door, which is beside the telephone. The internet immediately went out AGAIN. And something clicked in my brain--we've had a lot of traffic in and out of that door, and more people have been here using the phone--maybe there was a connection?!! I told DH my theory, he picked up a new phone this AM, ran home to install it, found a FRIED WIRE, held down by a LOOSE SCREW, evidently damage from the LIGHTNING STRIKE. He replaced the wire, installed the new phone, and here I am typing to you all, with no problems so far. We've tried the phone, answered phone calls, slammed the door, plugged in the remote phone, no problems. Evidently whenever we answered the phone, or closed the door hard enough to 'disconnect' the line, we were losing internet service. So why didn't THREE phone guys and my computer-savvy DH think to check the phone that I told them 'popped' when the lightning hit?!! LOL, do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?!! Sorry for the long, rambling post, but can it be that simple?!!
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Seems to usually be at random, but I have two mildly entertaining/interesting stories that I know of. My previous neighbor once got struck by lightning while washing dishes and I would think that she never did that again during a thunderstorm. At the Biltmore estate in asheville (one of the best places for garden and landscaping inspiration) they have a row of tulip poplars o each side of the fountain (in the front). You would wonder why they haven't gotten very big considering how old some of the trees there are. A tour guide told me the reason they never got very big was because lightning would strike them during thunderstorms. I have seen about 5 of the trees replaced in the past 4 years, always with large B&B specimens. Here is a picture where you can see the row of tulip poplars:
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mike1059
11 years ago
If redoing the connections fails to work the next most probable thing is a break in the common wire between the timer and the valves. It may take a wire trace to find the break which a local contractor should be able to help you with. As for the grease caps, they can sometimes be reused but my preference is to use new waterproof wire nuts.
lehua49
11 years ago
Gg,

One more thing you might do that is in addition to the ideas Mike has offered is to test all the zones manually from the valve by turning on and off the valves by turning the solenoids until the zone comes on and then turning the solenoid back just until the zone stops. This has nothing to do with the controller's operation or wiring but is to make sure it is just an electrical problem and not something else. Your technician should have done this but maybe you failed to mention it. The technician should have done the continuity check on the wires as well. GL Aloha
Goosegas
Original Author
11 years ago
First off I would like to thank Mike lehua for your replies and sharing your knowledge.

I turned on each zone manually and all the heads and zones worked and pressure was normal for all zones.

Then I cut off all the wire/grease caps, in the valve box and restripped and reconnected every wire, using new waterproof wire nuts.

I then took the OLD (supposedly fried) timer and reconnected it. The sprinkler system works perfectly and after reprogramming the timer, it works perfectly as well.

The good news is that you guys saved me a ton of money, all I really had to buy were wire nuts, and my system is working again. I am very grateful for your help.

The bad news is that I have to decide what to do about the guy that came to fix my system.

He didn't give me any impression that he was coming to estimate and not fix. When he got here he was wearing dressy clothes and shoes, surely not something you would expect if a guy is gonna crawl around by a valve box.

He told me that the timer was fried after looking at it for 10 seconds. He said it was so fried he couldn't remove the fuse. He then shot me an email estimate from his ipad, which he had in his vehicle. The estimate was for $300, which was for a new timer and the labor to install it. He said that if there were wire problems, valve problems, pvc problems, etc. the price would go up accordingly.

That was when I started to read and talk to you guys.

When I took the timer off the wall, not only was the fuse easy to remove, it was not burned out. There was power getting to the timer and all stored data was still visible. The Tech/Owner that told me the unit was fried certainly couldn't have missed that.

So, if I was to have believed him, it would have cost me $300, plus whatever else he felt he needed/wanted to add to the bill. The only problem was clearly a connection. The funny thing is that I went through a service similar to "Angie's List" to find him. The reviews on the site were raving as to how great the company is....I am confused.

I can just imagine how many old widows/widowers are overpaying through the nose, overpaying for things in situations similar to mine.

In closing, I think you guys were not only correct about the connections, but also about the common ground being the one. All the connections I removed looked perfect, except for the common wire connect to the batch of wires coming from each valve. The wire coating looked dark, not white, and even the wiring looked a bit odd. I stripped the common a bit further down and it looked clean, so I reconnected.

Thanks Agin!!!!

Rick
Goosegas
Original Author
11 years ago
Update...Today my sprinkler system did not come up.

I immediately tested the timer by manually selecting each zone...nothing happened. I went to open each valve manually and they worked fine.

I then decided to try the new timer I bought and was about to return, since the old one worked fine yesterday, and I got nothing.

I went back to the valve box, where we believed the problem was, along with the solution, I undid all the connections, exposed new, clean sections of wiring, and put new grease caps on...nothing.

Lastly I went back to the valve box and moved all the wires around a little to see if there might be a bad connection in a wire close to the connections...after all redoing the connections yesterday got the system going. That didn't work either.

I do not think there is any logical next step that I can perform. I don't have any tools which would allow me to trace or determine if the wiring needs changing, etc.
At the same time I am reluctant to call somebody after the experience I had with the guy that told me the timer was fried and wanted $300.00.
mike1059
11 years ago
Can you post the brand and model of timer you have. Some models have a reset which can sometimes fix trouble like your having now.
Goosegas
Original Author
11 years ago
Sure Mike...here is the info.

The timer that was supposedly fried, but was able to run the system Friday after fixing the connections in the valve box is a Rain Bird Model ESP-6 PM.

The new timer, which also doesn't currently turn on the system is a Rain Bird Model SST600o.

The new timer has a reset button right on the front panel, which I hoped might help, but it didn't. I also unplugged and replugged the timer in the AC outlet.

It really sounds to me like I moved or fixed a bad connection in the area of the valve box, otherwise I can't explain the fact that it was dead and then all the zones ran. Maybe after I ran the zones and then tucked the connections back under in the box it created another bad connection.

I just had one other thought. I noticed that the grease caps I bought are considerably larger than the ones I removed. Is it possible that the connection is going bad within the caps due to their size?

I guess I could find out by taking off all the caps and then try running the system with all the connections twisted rather than capped.
Thanks again Mike

Rick
mike1059
11 years ago
The only connection you need to check is the one for the common wire. that's the only one that will keep all stations from running.

Lightning Strike

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