Shipping containers and lightning

Started by trish2, December 19, 2016, 02:47:11 AM

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trish2

Not being a weather-wise person, I am wondering if a house made from a shipping container will be a problem in thunder and lightning storms.  What happens to the occupants of a container house if lightning strikes it while the occupants are inside?  Are they in an danger?  Will the container act as a lightning rod?

MushCreek

Actually, it might be safer in a steel enclosure. If my hazy high school science serves me, it acts as a Faraday shield, conducting the electricity safely down the outside without affecting the contents. Don't take my word for it, though!
Jay

I'm not poor- I'm financially underpowered.


MountainDon

I believe that too. Just like a metal roofed vehicle is safer than out in the open.  That said I would want to have the metal electrically connected to a good grounding system. And I would install air terminals (lightning rods) on the roof.  The rods, connected to ground, can actually bleed static charges in the atmosphere before a strike happens.  This ground is separate fromany grounding provided for the power circuits.
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

wgiles

As long as the shell is properly grounded, I wouldn't expect to have any real problems with lightning. That said, lightning doesn't behave by normal electricity rules. There is so much energy in a lightning strike that it is  very difficult to predict the damage of a direct hit. I have four buildings on a three acre site that have electricity. My distribution system includes four power poles plus my meter pole. I had a direct lightning hit on one of my outlying poles. I know this because 1/3 of the pole was lying in the yard 50 feet away. Evidently, lightning vaporized moisture in the pole and caused it to explode. I have a whole house surge arrestor on each of my buildings and the only damage was to a battery charge controller and CD/FM Stereo in a trailer connected to an adjacent pole. I didn't find any actual damage to the wiring on the pole that was struck by lightning. After this incident, I did install a ground wire from the top of the pole to ground, much like the utilities do on each of their poles. I'm not a fan of lightning rods, but I do believe that a good path to ground and separate grounds for lightning and power are wise. A metal skinned building is a tough case since the power ground will be connected to the skin somewhere.