Wow, but again, did they not have a lightning rod on the house or were the copper pipes not grounding enough for them, or no copper pipes?

Have absolutely no idea about the house and protection.

They live in a huge fairly new residential development.

Just sharing an update.

Thankfully they both are ok.

We caught a lightening strike a number of years ago. Not the kind of damage your neighbor had. I can't even remember the few things that had to be replaced. As I said, nothing majorâ¦â¦the one thing I remember is all the dimmer switches. The electrician said that was common. I thought it very interesting. Glad your friends are well and everything is being resolved.

PVC piping? Our town's building code requires copper supply and cast iron waste pipes. I *think* these act as grounders. (Wiser heads at the KT respond, please?)

I'm glad to hear that basically your friends are doing okay. Thanks for the update. I hope all the repairs go smoothly and quickly, and am glad they have good insurance.

Shirley

My area doesn't have lightning (thankfully) so I have no experience with grounding.

We do have plumbing, though, and I would suggest to you chisue that a building code like that results either from pressure from the plumbers union or a town building department that pays no attention to new developments. There are alternatives to copper and cast iron that are better or at least equal to the old methods in some but not all situations. The alternatives happen to be cheaper and faster to do, that can be why they're opposed by unions.

But Chisue is right. The metal pipes work to ground the house in case of lightning strikes.

A few years ago a house just up the road from me was hit by lightning and burned to the ground. It was so sad . . . the owners weren't home, but their dog was. A dog's worst nightmare come true.

I remember the storm well. My two dogs weren't usually bothered much by t-storms, but they were terrified. They didn't get along well with each other under normal circumstances, but they huddled together with me in the kitchen. I heard the strike that hit the neighbor's house. Our power went out, but I but didn't realize how bad it was until the fire trucks came.

Snidely, I'm trying to envision a place in the world that doesn't ever get thunderstorms, but I'm drawing a blank. Care to share?

I live in coastal Central (called by all "Northern", although several hundred miles from the Oregon border) California. I can't remember the last time we had lightning or thunder, though I suspect it's happened in the last 5 years. Maybe someone can refresh my memory.

I grew up in coastal So Cal, and in 50s and 60s it was the same. Thunder and lightning were infrequent. It's changed down there, they now seem to now get occasional bouts of humid tropical air and some thunderstorms. But mostly in the mountains and deserts, rarely along the coast. Up here, lightning is common in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the summer time. That's a few hundred miles away from my area.

By saying "infrequently", I mean less than once a year.

Thanks, Snidely--I had no idea. I knew that some areas (Florida, for example) tended to get more t-storms, and more violent ones, so I suppose I should have figured out that some other areas would get significantly fewer.

I do know that "northern California" does get thunder and lightning every once in awhile because I have two friends that live there that are from Ohio and they just love it when that happens.

Metal piping do act as grounds. Lightening may strike the highest part of the plumbing and it will go through the roof to do it. This type of grounding offers no protection. It is like a lightening rod inside the house.

The best protection is a tree or tower near the house that is taller than the house. A metal flag pole acts as a lightening rod. Generally speaking, objects within a 30 deg cone drawn from the top of the pole are somewhat protected. However, there is no guarantee that it will not be hit for all strikes. The voltage potential just before the strike is extremely powerful. The path from ground to cloud gets ionized and then the charge suddently dumps along the path of least resistance. Flag poles and trees are hit on a regular basis so its not a good idea to be near the base of these things because you may become part of the discharge path.