Lightning hit my house

[Fa24wrx]

Two weekends ago, we had a pretty bad thunder storm. Ended up hitting what I think is our chimney or power pole. I saw a flash and smelled smoke so I thought there was a fire. Quickly realized I wasn't prepared since we don't have an extinguisher. Come to find out it was our internet data cable. Took ATT two days to fix it all. That next night, our oven seemed to die. It was old and needed upgrading anyway. So we did that and today I installed the new range hood.

 

[MasterSolenoid]

Could have been a lot worse.
It's difficult to protect from a 'direct' hit.
I installed a whole-house surge protector, and point-of-use protectors for the A/C lines.

I believe there is some type of surge protector for phone (landlines).
Did ATT add any protection.
What did ATT have to say ?

Any damage to your computer/Wi-Fi ?
During a severe thunderstorm, it could be wise to disconnect your computer/Wi-Fi from outside lines.

 

[oil pan 4]

I had lightning hit right next to my house back about 2013 and the window A/C compressor growled. Seemed to be fine immediately after, but by the next morning it was dead....

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

Many years ago when my dad was still a residential electrician, he got called to a house that had taken a direct lightning hit to the peckerhead where the service comes into the house. Not only had it fried the electric meter, he said after getting that fixed, a little more than half of the circuits in the house did not work. Upon investigation the lightning strike had literally vaporized the copper conductors inside of the Romex and individual insulation! It ended up being a nearly whole-house rewire.

 

[Urshurak776]

Lightning hit right next to our house when I lived in Georgia. Took out my son's TV, his room was closest to the hit. After that, I installed a whole home surge protector in the breaker panel.

Incindentally, I was able to fix the tv. Fried the main board. Got a new one on eBay for like $35. When I got it, I saw it was an older revision then the one in his tv. I swapped it anyway and it fired right up. He used that TV for another 6 years or so (it was already like 5 years old.)

 

[Fa24wrx]

Could have been a lot worse.
It's difficult to protect from a 'direct' hit.
I installed a whole-house surge protector, and point-of-use protectors for the A/C lines.

I believe there is some type of surge protector for phone (landlines).
Did ATT add any protection.
What did ATT have to say ?

Any damage to your computer/Wi-Fi ?
During a severe thunderstorm, it could be wise to disconnect your computer/Wi-Fi from outside lines.

Yes, it could have been a lot worse.

We're going to look into some kind of syste. ATT techs said the wiring was fried and replaced it. That's it.

No obvious damage to anything else (other than aforementioned oven, which could have been coincidence) we can see.

Good idea!

 

[Fa24wrx]

Lightning hit right next to our house when I lived in Georgia. Took out my son's TV, his room was closest to the hit. After that, I installed a whole home surge protector in the breaker panel.

Incindentally, I was able to fix the tv. Fried the main board. Got a new one on eBay for like $35. When I got it, I saw it was an older revision then the one in his tv. I swapped it anyway and it fired right up. He used that TV for another 6 years or so (it was already like 5 years old.)

That's wild! Glad you got that fixed for him

 

[vwmaniaman]

I was at a house in Phoenix that got hit and all the lights came on. It welded all the wall switches. Also was camping in a campground near St Louis when a storm came up and hit a pole near where we were and a ball of lightning rolled on top of the wires to the next transformer and got to ground there. That's the weirdest stuff I have ever seen. We were not plugged in that day.

 

[LenZee]

Many years ago when my dad was still a residential electrician, he got called to a house that had taken a direct lightning hit to the peckerhead where the service comes into the house. Not only had it fried the electric meter, he said after getting that fixed, a little more than half of the circuits in the house did not work. Upon investigation the lightning strike had literally vaporized the copper conductors inside of the Romex and individual insulation! It ended up being a nearly whole-house rewire.

During hurricane Sandy in NJ a high power line got knocked down onto my cable line. The coax center copper conductor in my basement vaporized but no fire and no electronics got fried. Didn't know it happened until 10 days later when power was restored and cable didn't work. Cable guy got it up and running in 10 minutes, Got lucky no tvs or modem got fried. House up the block wasn't lucky and had a fire from it.

 

[Cujet]

OP, hope your damage is minimal!

My Jupiter, FL house gets hit fairly regularly. Plenty of blown up stuff, including the air cond motors, stereo, TV, washer, diswasher, etc. Costs me a fortune each time. I installed multiple surge protectors in the breaker box and on equipment. Lost a bunch of those too.

Not to mention the blown up pine trees with pine-tree shrapnel.

My house backs up to the everglades. So it's a neighborhood house with plenty of trees, on the edge of the Northeast everglades wetlands with few trees. It's my guess the lightning goes for phone poles and trees on the edge here.

A collection of lightning exploded pine tree from my roof:

 

[alarmguy]

Could have been a lot worse.
It's difficult to protect from a 'direct' hit.
I installed a whole-house surge protector, and point-of-use protectors for the A/C lines.
…

I’m a big proponent of what you posted.
I don’t know call it a hobby or whatever but I have a whole house protector in my breaker panel, a robust unit on my AC heat pump and I use individual protectors at the outlets. (even obscure places like our dishwasher and range hood, washing machine, garage door opener etc)

It’s not even being crazy about protecting from lightning as it is from every day little spikes of power gradually wearing on electronics

With that said decades ago before my first house, we had lightning hit near our apartment and I heard static electricity in the rooms of the apartment. Discovered it blew out at the time my cordless phone and cable box.
Part of my career was also in the Security business and that’s when I became a really big proponent of these devices because every summer I have witnessed and serviced homes and businesses with nearby lightning strikes, they may not protect against a direct hit, but certainly will go along way towards protecting powerful surges in nearby hits.

I’ve seen way too much damage every single summer and because I like electronics so much I’m into this stuff anyway so it’s fun

As I’m posting this, we have tropical storm, Debbie, heading our way. Bands of rain have been coming through all afternoon along with lightning and actually tornado warnings, not watches in our town.
The point is we have underground powerlines here, but just this afternoon alone our lights have flashed more times than they have in the past year combined and I think to myself this is cool that I have our protection here maxed out as best I can at a reasonable cost

 

[walterjay]

Lightening is weird. Had a customer who had a hit on a tree about 60' away from the house. The lightening traveled up an underground rain leader and into the house destroying a lot of electronics. The buried rain leader looked like a giant mole pushed through it.

A guy I worked with touched a light switch the instant lightening struck sending him flying back onto the floor. Lucky to be alive.

 

[SHOZ]

I was lighting a water heater pilot light kneeled on the garage concrete floor when lightning hit right outside. I still remember seeing the arc from the copper gas line to my arm.......

 

[thastinger]

Best thing you can do is NOT to put a ground reference 30 feet (on top of your roof) in the air. Trees get hit like that and wood is a terrible conductor of electricity.

 

[thastinger]

I was lighting a water heater pilot light kneeled on the garage concrete floor when lightning hit right outside. I still remember seeing the arc from the copper gas line to my arm.......

Now you pee a little when someone starts the microwave?

 

[oldcodger]

My old home place house burned down from lightening strike. My house got ht once, It came in on the telephone line and somehow got into the wire reinforcement in the slab. Blew up about a 6"x6" chunk of concrete in my apron to my garage. Also jumped from the reinforcing wire to a copper hot water line and made a pinhole leak. Wife said the floor to the bathroom was warm. (That is not good)

 

[Pablo]

I was lighting a water heater pilot light kneeled on the garage concrete floor when lightning hit right outside. I still remember seeing the arc from the copper gas line to my arm.......

How long before you were normal again?

 

[alarmguy]

Lightening is weird. Had a customer who had a hit on a tree about 60' away from the house. The lightening traveled up an underground rain leader and into the house destroying a lot of electronics. The buried rain leader looked like a giant mole pushed through it.

A guy I worked with touched a light switch the instant lightening struck sending him flying back onto the floor. Lucky to be alive.

Yes, when I was a kid, in my parents home, it was CREEPY. Plumber suggested it hit the ground nearby, traveled UP through the ground into the basement plumbing, blew a hole through the cold water copper pipe. Mom SWEARS she saw electricity jump across the kitchen from a light fixture to the sink too.

 

[Analog-1]

Trees get hit like that and wood is a terrible conductor of electricity.

Unless it's soaked with water.

 

[mr_boring]

How long before you were normal again?

Legend has it that he has to wear Terminator sunglasses to this day to hide the glowing eye.