fence box causes fire?

[marvella]

i just had electricity run out to the barn. when i told the guy i was moving my fence charger from the house to a wall in the barn, he told me i need to put it on a pole in the field with a roof over it. he said if it gets hit by lightning it will run into the box and possibly burn down the barn.

is this true??

i've been using the same charger for a number of years. at the old house it got hit by lightning a few times but all i had to do was change the fuse to get it working again. i had no idea it could cause fire.

[Forerunner]

Very little negativity actually enters the realm of the probable without having first been introduced to the otherwise unworried mind.
However, once that virgin security is violated, evil is free to strike where it will.
Oh, that the naysayers new the havoc that they wreak.
But, then, if they were aware of how far-reaching one shaded word could travel in it's relentless path of destruction, and they chose to speak it anyway.....
how much hotter would the fires of their torment be on that dreadful day ?

[Cornhusker]

I've never heard of that happening, but I suppose anything is possible.
I'm inclined to think that as long as it's connected to a proper breaker it should be ok.
Just keep straw and such away from it.

[tyusclan]

It is possible, but if the box is fused and plugged into a circuit with right size breaker, it is highly unlikely.

I've had mine mounted on the barn wall for years, had I don't know how many lightning strikes, and never seen a fire from that.

I did see a bunch of hay get burned up one time when the cows knocked down a couple of posts, and the wire laid against the hay.

[Windy in Kansas]

Sure it is possible. Also possible if the lightning follows lines into your house to your refrigerator or any radio, television, lamp, appliance, or any other electrical device. Possible, not probable.

If it concerns you, put one of the surge protectors designed for computers in advance of the fencer to feed its electrical needs. The good ones are guaranteed to withstand such surges.

[marvella]

well, i wasn't worried about it til he said something. it is grounded and each outlet has it's own breaker.

reassurance is good.:-)

[Gary in ohio]

If you take a direct lighting hit then all bets are off. NO fuse/breaker is going to stop a lighting strike from going wherever it wants to go. Its going to follow the easiest path back to ground.

[Cygnet]

It's possible. But then, lighting can also follow a water line, phone line, cable line, etc. into your house.

I had a tree get hit by lightning on my property, less than thirty feet from my house. Heck of a hit -- it blew up an ironwood tree that's probably centuries old.

It arced to a t-post through the ground, leaving a line of dead grass. It slagged a plastic t-post topper on that t-post and vaporized a couple hundred feet of aluminum fence wire. Blew up the fence charger in spectacular levels of "blown up."

And multiple electronic items in the house were damaged by the EMP -- a cordless phone, a microwave (that continued to work, just without a display), a VCR that was hooked to rabbit ears, a clock radio, a boombox (not plugged in) and a cell phone that wasn't even plugged in. Some other things. The common denominator was that everything toasted had some sort of antenna except for the microwave, and I suspect the metal inside the microwave caught the EMP.

Weirdly, my computer wasn't touched -- and it was plugged in and turned on at the time! However, the computer's in a metal case that probably worked as a farady cage.

However, I had no damage to the house wiring, and no fire. The charger was plugged into the house at the time.

Go fig. Lightning simply does what it wants to.

The ironwood tree, incidentally, lived, minus a few dead limbs and some blasted-off bark. Those trees are pretty much indestructable.

-- Leva