On Tuesday, 6 April 2021 at 14:35:36 UTC+1, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
On 05/04/2021 16:15, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
On another group, I heard about a lightning strike to a house, via the
TV aerial. Aerial went to a DA. Seemed it burnt out all the house
wiring and every appliance in it. Requiring the owners to move out for
months while it was all sorted. Seems it also travelled to other
houses in the street too via the mains and caused much damage there
too. Was rather surprised to read this. I've seen a TV destroyed - but
not so much extra damage.

It seems quite unlikely. Our VH has taken the odd hit and whilst it
takes out the mains for a while the emergency lights survive OK.

A building I was in at work took a big direct hit that found its way
into the internal telephone network deafening the lady on the
switchboard who was unconsolable afterwards (as in it took about a day
to recover her hearing) .

Vapourised the phone cabling in the trunking leaving nasty black marks
on the wall. We felt very aggrieved that the strike hit our apex rather
than the much higher supergrid pylon 100m away. Capricious stuff is
lightning. It was one of those big industrial sheds with a metal roof.

Induced currents blew out some of the more delicate parts of the
mainframe interface boards whilst the surge suppressors saved themselves
by allowing other more delicate (ie. expensive) components to fry.

Once the damage was assessed we were back on mains power fairly quickly.
Emergency diesel generator cut in for critical systems as the mains went
down. Smelly noisy thing but at least it worked on the day! Internal
phone system was down for most of a week - complete rewire needed.

I have had modems killed by close lightning strikes but that is about
it. You can't rule it out but it must be very unlikely. Most times the
UPS or emergency backup power maintains full operation.

You would have to be very unlucky for it to damage mains wiring but if
it does then the huge currents involved can be very destructive.
Yes - I can readily see all that happening. But the story teller was very
definite about it being a TV aerial strike. And that being on a DA. Which
then jumped into the mains and destroyed all of that. And in a couple of
neighbouring houses too.

I'd have expected a major strike to have cause a fire, or structural
damage first.

--
*I'm not as think as you drunk I am.
Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

The thing is how do you know which direction it went to and from.
The aerial lead was damaged the lead blew out of the back of the TV.
The aerial cable seemd OK but teh screen seemed chard and a bit brittle but still worked.
The fuse in a mains plug vapourised, the HDMI lead to the DVD player
'soldered' itself to the curcuit board.
But no one saw the TV aerial get hit, but it was reproted that someone saw lighting hit
the virgin media box in the street, I heard the crack of lightening which was about 1/2 mile away.
I remmeber it because it didn't make the same sound as I normally hear from thinder/lightning.
Don;t forget that loightning can be postive or negative.