Took a Lightning Strike!!!

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K,

At least with my Insurance company, they need a repair/replacement estimate from someone other than me.. So the plumber is giving me an estimate to repair the leak and I need Pentair to either replace the equipment under warranty (which I doubt) or they need to give me an estimate for the repair/replacement cost.

From my point of view the equipment is still under warranty (time wise) so I contracted my pool builder, who in-turn contacted the local Pentair guys.

Kind of cool watching the plumber find the leaking copper pipe in the slab. Ran a locator signal down the hot water output pipe at the heater. They were than able to "see" where the pipe went under the slab. Once they marked where the pipe traveled, they used a stethoscope like device to isolate the spot were the pipe was leaking.

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
Kind of cool watching the plumber find the leaking copper pipe in the slab. Ran a locator signal down the hot water output pipe at the heater. They were than able to "see" where the pipe went under the slab. Once they marked where the pipe traveled, they used a stethoscope like device to isolate the spot were the pipe was leaking.
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That is pretty neat. My cousin does radon mitigation and uses an infrared camera to locate pipes before he drills into the slab. Kinda a fun toy to play with.

Good luck on the repairs, hope it all goes smoothly.
 
Jimrahbe said:
My household insurance pays for lighting strikes, so that is a good thing, but of course I have pretty high deductible, so that is a bad thing.
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Actually a high deductible is a very good thing. Insurance should be for catastrophic incidents that would truly effect your financial well being if you had to pay out of pocket, not smaller nuisance claims. I'm not saying that a couple thousand dollars is not real money, but folks who use a low deductible (say $500 or $1,000) and make multiple claims will lose in two ways -

- Your yearly premium goes way up

- Your insurance company will drop you after the second or third claim.

The insurance industry is getting smarter and "sharing" information between companies. Databases now track your (as an individual) claim history as well as the claim history of a residence. When you buy a house the insurance company will know the history of claims there.

Stick with a high deductible even if it hurts a little now.....
 
The Pentair tech came out today...

Replaced the EasyTouch main PCB and the ScreenLogic Protocol Adapter and everything is up and working...

He did not seem to care what caused the problem. This particular tech was pretty sharp.. In and out in about half an hour.

So I am one pretty happy camper!!!

Thanks,

Jim R.
 
Dang - all of that at once. No electrician here but I'm pretty sure that proper grounding is (2) 6 foot copper rods driven into the ground 6 feet apart. They connect to the panel and the copper plumbing. Just had 95% of my house wired two years ago. Could the surge have found it's exit through the pipe in the slab?

Impressive on the Pentair replacement. I had a warranty claim last year with Pentair - Bart with Mountjoy Pools handled the warranty for the N Dallas area - very sharp and good.
 
All,

I think the key, in the Pentair Tech's mind was that there was no obvious physical damage. No blown chips, no blown capacitors, no blow traces on the PCB.

He did not use these words, but the lack of any obvious damage, means that it could have been lightning, or it could have been coincidence, so the tie goes to the pool owner..

My house was built a long time ago, and at the time the electric panel was grounded to the cold water pipe and I think a single grounding rod...

The plumber mentioned that they no longer connect to the plumbing...

Jim R.
 

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Plumbing used to be a good ground back in the day as copper pipe generally ran out of the basement and to the well or street. Nowadays very little if any copper is used in resdential water plumbing so there is nothing to ground to.

As for current code for grounding it varies from place to place. Regardless of grounding method a good utility ground is one with an impededance less than 2 ohms but you need specialized equipment to measure that. The most common ways to get that is with one or more 8' grounding rods or be grounding to the rebar in your slab or foundation. Soil moisture and soil composition greatly impact how effective the ground is.

As an example of going overboard with grounding I have 3 rods spaced 6' apart driven into the ground and I also tied to the rebar in my foundation.
 
CJ.

The plumber said that when lightning hits it can go down the rebar until it hits a grounded copper pipe and zap... you have a hole.

So connecting the rebar and any copper plumbing to the same ground sounds like a good idea to me.

A little late for me to have it done that way... :p

Jim R.
 
Jimrahbe said:
CJ.

The plumber said that when lightning hits it can go down the rebar until it hits a grounded copper pipe and zap... you have a hole.

So connecting the rebar and any copper plumbing to the same ground sounds like a good idea to me.

A little late for me to have it done that way... :p

Jim R.
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My sister had something happen that is apparently a common cause of house fires. Lightning hit near the house and travelled through the underground copper propane line until it jumped to something else that was grounded inside the house. The point where it jumped it burned a hole in the propane line and ignited the gas. It had burned long enough to fill the house with a smoke smell and char a floor joist by the time they got home.
 
JohnT said:
My sister had something happen that is apparently a common cause of house fires. Lightning hit near the house and travelled through the underground copper propane line until it jumped to something else that was grounded inside the house. The point where it jumped it burned a hole in the propane line and ignited the gas. It had burned long enough to fill the house with a smoke smell and char a floor joist by the time they got home.
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Wow!!! They were lucky that did happen in the middle of the night where they might not have noticed..

Jim R.
 
CJadamec said:
Plumbing used to be a good ground back in the day as copper pipe generally ran out of the basement and to the well or street. Nowadays very little if any copper is used in resdential water plumbing so there is nothing to ground to.

As for current code for grounding it varies from place to place. Regardless of grounding method a good utility ground is one with an impededance less than 2 ohms but you need specialized equipment to measure that. The most common ways to get that is with one or more 8' grounding rods or be grounding to the rebar in your slab or foundation. Soil moisture and soil composition greatly impact how effective the ground is.

As an example of going overboard with grounding I have 3 rods spaced 6' apart driven into the ground and I also tied to the rebar in my foundation.
Click to expand...

I thought copper pipes were grounded so one couldnt get shocked if the pipe came in contact with a hot wire?
 
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