Static Electricity

[Stealth]

The rest of the story

I talked with the electrical contractor again today. He was using12/2 wire,roughing it in. Nothing was connected,just running to the boxes. He was using romex. Both floors were affected,but not the basement or breaker box,which was not hooked up either, but was grounded.The wires were what were conducting the electricity, acting like an antenna.The apartment building was not on top of a hill,but was on the side of a small hill.Good Luck. Stealth

[Harvey]

Thanx Stealth,

By any chance, did you ask if the boxes were metal or plastic?

I wonder too how much plumbing was run . . .

[Richie_asg1]

From what I saw in a documentary a few years ago now, lightning is a two-stage affair.
When the potential builds between cloud base and ground, the pointed surfaces of the ground plane emit streamers into the sky. This is any conducting surface that is the tallest item around. Often trees, telegraph poles and buildings with lightning conductors on them.

Therefore just before the strike - all earthed objects above ground level would be emitting streamers skywards.
This would be enough for the cables on upper floors to generate static tracks collecting dust into visible tracks on plastic cases, and I suspect charring from the cabes to the plasterboard (if foil lined) or other metalic objects nearby.
If they were using foil backed gyproc, then it would act as a large plane antenna - earthed only by the wire loosely poked through it.

You guys probably know my thoughts on the Ark of the covenant being a large dipole on a mountaintop, and I expect you would get some decent sparks between the angels wings from it in your office block

(Great Photo from Scpankme ! )

[Stealth]

He was using plastic boxes. The plumber had just started plumbing in the basement, so there would have been very little plastic pipe put together. Also he had not started running the sewer pipe yet. The electric contractor went into the basement because of the thunder storm.He claimed that lightning did not strike the building or any other structures nearby, but that static did build up in the wires and burned streaks across the plastic boxes.
I have not tried it yet, but it is claimed that if you run an insulated wire above the ground, that static electricity will build up in the wire,even to the point of charging batteries, with a coil setup to convert it to DC. I plan to explore this further when I get time to see how much electricity I can produce.Good Luck. Stealth

[Iotayodi]

If he ran romex then he used plastic boxes. Few reasons to use metal boxes with romex. With the romex I dont see a plain electrostatic build up. With that amount of current it had to be lighting induced. You could say antenna effect I guess. I just dont see a potential charge buildup on the romex before the lightning strike. I do see a potential charge if metal studs were used.

[Iotayodi]

insulated wire above the ground, that static electricity will build up in the wire

More so outside with an elevated single insulated conductor . Romex has two sheathings. I can get voltage off a bare wire but never tried insulated wire. Ill have to try that out today. Heres something else. A plain wooden post has voltage depending on the amount of water content. Stick your negative probe in the ground and run the positive up and down the post in different spots..