feel free to take the "isolated home challenge." as soon as the first electrical storm rolls through, or a dry-air mass, or some kind of other ionic disturbace comes through, you're going to turn everything metallic in your entire house into a giant capacitor. all of the ions in the atmosphere will begin giving off static charges to everything metal in your house. those charges will build up, until they build up enough to be able to JUMP to something that actually makes contact to the earth. you know, just like a capacitor. JUST LIKE LIGHTNING, ITSELF.
but this is only going to be recognized if you're not the surprise path that the static build-up finds to jump to the earth. if it's big enough, you won't even get to tell anyone how wrong you were. sounds a bit over-the-top, doesn't it? IT'S NOT. have you ever grabbed a metallic storm door that shocked the hell out of you? the reason it did, is because it's a chunk of metal that is isolated from the earth and our grounded electrical system. i agree, it doesn't feel good. now, imagine your entire electrical system's metallic mass, taking on that same charge, and discharging it all through YOU. that's a lot of electrons, and a lot of amperes.
but you feel free to sit there in your well-grounded home, and pretend like it could never happen to you. i'd just like to ask that you stop putting crazy ideas in other people's heads. grounding is FAR more important than you realize. just because you're living in a well-grounded world, doesn't mean you should stop appreciating it.
