Lightning Strike crazy $$$$ damages so far

[MBfreak]

Some input from lightning protection in outdoor HV switchgear ( ie > 145 kv up to 1250 kV AC and DC) .
Power lines not included
Stage 1
Umbrella wires ( steel wires dia 45 mm) around 6 meters above the highest HV part. At least 4 meters outside the switchgear foot print.
Stage 2
Incoming HV line earth conductor solidly earthed in at least the last three pylons.
Stage 3
Hanging surge arrestors in the last HV pylon b4 switchgear
Stage 4
Surge arrestor on incoming lines in the HV Switchgear
Stage 5
185 sqmm copper nework buried in quad pattern 2,2 m, 1 m down and all concrete rebars connected to that
Stage 6
Surge arrestors as close as possible to all capacitor banks, reactors and power transformers.
Stage 7
NO phase to phase surge arrestors.
Stage 8
Building for control , protection, aux pwr xfs , communication designed as a Farady cage.

This usually works very well.
Have seen only two calamities over 35 years, both in Iran. South west half desert
So strong and often recurring surges that even very high powered modern arrestors ( 60 kA/ 90 kJ)
overheated , exploded and power transformers and CVTs died on the next heavy strike.

Ola

 

[rlitman]

Wow what is the orange blob?

Looks to me like it was many layers of cambric tape covered with an overlayer of self-fusing tape. The question is what's under it?
If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that was some sort of medium voltage bus bar. And the picture sure looks like good confirmation of the reason that high voltage insulated underground cables have a semiconductor layer between the dielectric and the jacket.

 

[MBfreak]

The orange blob seems to me a taped cable sealing end.
There appears , also, to be some insulating semiliquid, black, running out.
The arcing explanation and semiconducting layer by rlitman above is absolutely correct
The ONE most faultinducing MV and HV part is cable sealing ends of all kinds.

The real hooter is the shrink tubing sealing end with semiconducting layers.
Copper expands at high load and pushes out the shrink tubing with the semiconducting layer.
Load goes down , shrink stays "open" creating an air gap to the semiconducting layer.
Microsparking starts in the airgap, just a few picocoulombs to start with but exponentially increasing.
Resulting in a nice flashover and sealing end/joint is history.
Ola

 

[minytrker]

Slowly getting stuff replaced and totaling the damage. Think we are around $25k right now. The worst is my network and home automation. Since every part was fried when I tried to load a backup it didnt work since every component is new. So I have to star over connecting and programming several hundreds items all over again.

 

[Chukster]

Damn, hope all who were inside are safe.

Few neighbors on the farm got direct or nearly direct strikes on their power lines in the past. Get a good inspection of the wiring, at least 2 of them got their entire house rewired as part of the repairs. One strike was so large it blew the cover plates off the outlets on the side of the house closest to the main panel

Had one do that. Lightning struck a tree in the back yard, bout 75 yo oak. Jumped out about 10 ft up, went into the ground and followed the invisible fence wire into the house, blew the controller off the panelled wall and across the room. Last of it went to duplex outlet blowing the cover plate off with nice coating of spattered copper.

 

[Fav Onefour]

I've often wondered if all those years of putting lightning rods on buildings were actually for a good reason. The idea seems good in theory to potentially direct the hit around a structure. Oddly enough lightning rods seemed to fade away as building construction and wiring became more sophisticated. Maybe they just don't work? I don't know?

We had a hit on the farm when I was a kid. It didn't seem like much happened. There were two steers burnt to a crisp in the cattle yard. One looked like it was in a running stride and still upright in the mud. As days went by, we found more damage to electric components. Three horse gutter cleaner motor guts were melted into a solid mass. The sub panel was gutted and we found quite a few fixtures with wiring burnt at the terminals. The items and animals hit were spread across a distance of a few hundred yards.

 

[mike93lx]

Oddly enough lightning rods seemed to fade away as building construction and wiring became more sophisticated. Maybe they just don't work? I don't know?

My assumption is that architects and engineers have gotten better at integrating them, not that they aren't used

 

[wyliesdiesels]

I've often wondered if all those years of putting lightning rods on buildings were actually for a good reason. The idea seems good in theory to potentially direct the hit around a structure. Oddly enough lightning rods seemed to fade away as building construction and wiring became more sophisticated. Maybe they just don't work? I don't know?

We had a hit on the farm when I was a kid. It didn't seem like much happened. There were two steers burnt to a crisp in the cattle yard. One looked like it was in a running stride and still upright in the mud. As days went by, we found more damage to electric components. Three horse gutter cleaner motor guts were melted into a solid mass. The sub panel was gutted and we found quite a few fixtures with wiring burnt at the terminals. The items and animals hit were spread across a distance of a few hundred yards.

not when it comes to microwave towers, telco facilities, and PSAPs- public safety answering points.... oh and skyscrappers....

 

[minytrker]

I have almost everything back and running finally, just waiting on new cooktop to come in. Lightning did NOT strike any of my outside AP's or the house (cant find nothing visually) so it looks like at the damage was from it hitting the transformer.
I thought I was really good at having all my network and home automation back up nightly. The back up's would have worked flawlessly if I didnt have to replace every item on the network at once. It really messed with the backups. I was able to cheat and restore my home automation and only have to reprogram about 35 items again. My network I I had to re-do from scratch but was able to change IP and network name back to old one and make everything work again vs starting over.

 

[cycle61]

Wow what is the orange blob?

That's insulation tape wrapped in layers around a bus bar. The missing bit near the bottom is where the arcing eroded it away. Edit: I missed the earlier responses. Ola as usual brings the detailed theory explanation.

 

[Junkdrawer Dog]

As the son of a TV repairman, we always had to get up double extra early on mornings after a lightning storm. The shop answering machine would be full up with calls. Lots of work for a week replacing antennas, antenna rotors, wiring and TV sets. Good payouts from homeowners and their insurance.

 

[sparky 1971]

This mornings news announced that the Sheriff's office in the county to the west of me was hit by lightning last night resulting in the loss of the non emergency phone service. 911 is operated out of somewhere else and was still up and running.

 

[Hohn]

Lightning struck the transformer outside my house last week and burned up a lot of stuff. I have a surge protector on my main breaker box for house and multiple battery back ups/ surge protectors throughout the house. None saved anything. It took out:
water well, 2 AC units, convection cook top, all my dyno electronics, my whole house automation computer system, camera system, router, 6 POE switches, cat 6 cable going to my shop, everything plugged into my 24 port POE switch, my whole network, network controller and the list keeps growing.

I’m only replying to observe the city of your location makes me want Cookie Dough Ice cream in the worst way, from “the little creamery in Brenham”. Growing up in WI I thought I knew what good ice cream was. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Moving to TX was an ice cream epiphany

We now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

This mornings news announced that the Sheriff's office in the county to the west of me was hit by lightning last night resulting in the loss of the non emergency phone service. 911 is operated out of somewhere else and was still up and running.

someone didnt install the bonding properly

 

[sparky 1971]

someone didnt install the bonding properly

Back in the day the local guy did everything: farmer, electrician, plumber, furnace man, drywall, and trash hauling so I wouldn't be surprised if there is no bonding. I've been in the building one time and don't plan on ever going back. It's also the county jail.

 

[reader2580]

A newspaper office building in Florida was built with lightning in mind due to regular lightning storms. It had a robust system to deal with lightning. That worked fine until a satellite dish was added to the building. The installers didn't include any lightning protection. Eventually, lightning struck the satellite dish and damaged a majority of the computers and other electronics in the building. They spent a lot of money to protect against lightning, but one oversight cost them a ton of time and money.

 

[chris142]

We lost a well submersible well pump once. May not sound like much but there is 150 feet of hose to deal with in both directions of the replacement. Lucky it is 150 feet because neighbor had to go about 450 feet to get adequate water. That a pile of hose to walk around the yard.

Here they use steel pipe. 300 ft of that with a 60lb pump on the bottom is too heavy to pull by hand. Its about $3000 for the well guy to come out and do it.

A few years ago we had a strike. Only thing damaged was the wires from the fuse box to the water heater. To this day I can't figure that out.

 

[bronc076]

I've been in the building one time and don't plan on ever going back. It's also the county jail.

What were you in for?

 

[mike93lx]

What were you in for?

Something to do with using a 100a breaker on a #2 feeder. Straight to jail

 

[Beemer]

Here they use steel pipe. 300 ft of that with a 60lb pump on the bottom is too heavy to pull by hand. Its about $300 for the well guy to come out and do it.

A few years ago we had a strike. Only thing damaged was the wires from the fuse box to the water heater. To this day I can't figure that out.

We also have a steel pipe through 100 feet of sand before it gets seated in rock. Drilling went another 50 feet into the rock.
The delivery hose goes inside the steel pipe. The pump is down near the bottom.

 

[ybnormal]

I’m only replying to observe the city of your location makes me want Cookie Dough Ice cream in the worst way, from “the little creamery in Brenham”. Growing up in WI I thought I knew what good ice cream was. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Moving to TX was an ice cream epiphany

We now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

I wonder if they are still doing the tour with a free sample at the end?

 

[ybnormal]

Something to do with using a 100a breaker on a #2 feeder. Straight to jail

 

[mike93lx]

He loves it

 

[wyliesdiesels]

We also have a steel pipe through 100 feet of sand before it gets seated in rock. Drilling went another 50 feet into the rock.
The delivery hose goes inside the steel pipe. The pump is down near the bottom.

wow never seen hose in pipe like that. its either steel or ABS/poly pipe here

 

[N_Jay]

wow never seen hose in pipe like that. its either steel or ABS/poly pipe here

I think what he is calling "pipe" is the well casing.

 

[sparky 1971]

What were you in for?

Public intox but the cops were called because of a fight I was in. The security camera footage showed that the two idiots I beat the hell out of had it coming, but one of them was a local officers nephew so they had to come up with something. I was .081, .001 over the legal limit. $50 fine but I had to appear in front of a magistrate the next morning, those beds ****.

Something to do with using a 100a breaker on a #2 feeder. Straight to jail

The nephew tried to tell me that was wrong. Three missing teeth and a broken nose later, he admitted I was right.

 

[bronc076]

Awesome story Sparky, more people need the **** beat out of them, but I thought you were in there installing new light fixtures or something like that!

 

[Beemer]

I think what he is calling "pipe" is the well casing.

Right, about 6" diameter. It is to retain the soil (out) and stops at bedrock. It projects out of the ground and has a cap.

 

[aggie113]

This makes me look like I got away easy when lightning struck my overhead transformer that sits between the house and garage. It blew up the transformer and the lightning went into the ground right where I had run a cat6 cable between the house and garage. Only blew out three switches and a few POE cameras as well as one laptop's network port. Now have fiber running between the garage and house!

 

[ybnormal]

This makes me look like I got away easy when lightning struck my overhead transformer that sits between the house and garage. It blew up the transformer and the lightning went into the ground right where I had run a cat6 cable between the house and garage. Only blew out three switches and a few POE cameras as well as one laptop's network port. Now have fiber running between the garage and house!

how many fiber lines did you run in case of failure? I used to work at the State Hospital off South New Braunfels and I know when we got severe thunderstorms, it would cause circuit overloads and UPSs to drop offline. occasionally we would have a fiber failure which would necessitate marking the pair as bad and dropping to the next pair

 

[aggie113]

how many fiber lines did you run in case of failure? I used to work at the State Hospital off South New Braunfels and I know when we got severe thunderstorms, it would cause circuit overloads and UPSs to drop offline. occasionally we would have a fiber failure which would necessitate marking the pair as bad and dropping to the next pair

Just one, like a chump... and I should have run 10Gbps instead of 1, I could have moved my NAS out there and let it warm up the garage instead of my spare bedroom. I'll probably redo it since I was lazy and just ran it inside conduit along the fence line between them, not even buried.

 

[ybnormal]

Just one, like a chump... and I should have run 10Gbps instead of 1, I could have moved my NAS out there and let it warm up the garage instead of my spare bedroom. I'll probably redo it since I was lazy and just ran it inside conduit along the fence line between them, not even buried.

 

[minytrker]

Dealing with insurance has been a huge pain. I submitted $26k in claims they are sending me $7K (that was after my $7250 deductible) and said they will increase that if I send new receipts for everything I replaced. Its been 3 weeks, what if I didnt have the $26k to replace all the stuff, would that have been faster? I did remind them on Friday that I pay $14k/yr and in 20 years havnet had a claim so they need to speed this up. I submitted most of the receipts of when I purchased the items (thats what they asked for) then they depreciated every item until I send them the replacement receipts. Why did I spent hours even looking for original receipts if they are worthless. It took all of 10 ten mins to get the new receipts together but now they have to re-adjust the claim and mail me another check. Another aggravating thing the claims agent NEVER answer the phone, not once in 3 weeks or returned a single phone call. She will email me back days later if I call. My actual agent answers everytime I call.

 

[LXCam]

What a saga miny, I sure hope you get it squared up at some point.

We got hit last wendesday but got really lucky, a couple GFI receptacles, the internet router and garage door opener, tripped two of the arc fault breakers and that was it.

 

[loganb]

That deductible *****...ouch

What you're describing in terms of paying out the current cash value now, then "recovering depreciation" at completion of work/replacement of item is pretty standard for insurance. I'm dealing with the same thing now on a hail claim on my house. Actual Cash Value(ACV) was paid immediately for the damages, but they hold the depreciated value until I show that the work is done and which point they're supposed to then release that promptly. Will find out as about to file a request for around $10k of that depreciated value...so far they've been good to work with

 

[minytrker]

That deductible *****...ouch

What you're describing in terms of paying out the current cash value now, then "recovering depreciation" at completion of work/replacement of item is pretty standard for insurance. I'm dealing with the same thing now on a hail claim on my house. Actual Cash Value(ACV) was paid immediately for the damages, but they hold the depreciated value until I show that the work is done and which point they're supposed to then release that promptly. Will find out as about to file a request for around $10k of that depreciated value...so far they've been good to work with

My homeowners is $6250 and shop is $1000 and it does **** for sure.

 

[brewchief]

A few years ago we had a customers house get hit a few months after installing a new furnace, we ended up replacing every single electronic part in it including the wiring harness, when we went to test the system we found the A/C lineset burnt through where it had arced to the sheetmetal coil cabinet.

By the time they were done the entire electrical system in the house had been replaced from the service coming in down to every inch of wire and every single appliance.
Wire pulled out of the walls would have random burn or melted spots.
Last I knew they had been out of the house for 6 plus months.

 

[meathooker]

Dealing with insurance has been a huge pain. I submitted $26k in claims they are sending me $7K (that was after my $7250 deductible) and said they will increase that if I send new receipts for everything I replaced. Its been 3 weeks, what if I didnt have the $26k to replace all the stuff, would that have been faster? I did remind them on Friday that I pay $14k/yr and in 20 years havnet had a claim so they need to speed this up. I submitted most of the receipts of when I purchased the items (thats what they asked for) then they depreciated every item until I send them the replacement receipts. Why did I spent hours even looking for original receipts if they are worthless. It took all of 10 ten mins to get the new receipts together but now they have to re-adjust the claim and mail me another check. Another aggravating thing the claims agent NEVER answer the phone, not once in 3 weeks or returned a single phone call. She will email me back days later if I call. My actual agent answers everytime I call.

Add an invoice for your time each call, task, etc

 

[minytrker]

Thats a good idea.

Two new trucks locally (not mine) also got struck by lightning. The one the owners insurance just totaled it automatically. The other was is sitting on the lot at the dealer. GM said fix it, so they spent 3 weeks changing modules and its back on the lot for sale. I wonder if they are going to disclose that to a buyer?

 

[PCustoms]

My homeowners is $6250 and shop is $1000 and it does **** for sure.

$14k per year and a $6k+ deductible?

WTF