Direct Lightning Strike

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jclint07

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south missouri
Long time, no post, all. Hope all are hanging in there. I believe there is a light at the end of this tunnel! Went on a service call to a customer who suffered a direct hit to her residence. First one Ive ever come across. It hit peak of her shingle roof, traveled down soffit, traveled down the down spouts, blew phone company's box off the house, then dissipated in the ground. She complains upstair lights no longer work. All breakers read 120V to ground, all breakers look in great shape. Home was just rewired 3 years ago with Romex. Circuit in question, has 90V Hot to Grounded Conductor, 120V Hot to Grounding Conductor. I'm stumped. 90V at light fixtures as well, reading across single pole switch in OFF position, reads 90V as well. Any ideas??
 
The circuit your are testing has an open neutral. If you ohm out between the grounded and grounding conductor you should read a continuity between the two conductors if both are complete back to the source loadcenter. Good luck with your search.
 
I wouldn't touch this job without meggering every single circuit. Lightning takes so many paths there's no telling how much real damage has been done..just because the other circuits are working doesn't mean that the conductors and/or insulation hasn't been compromised.
 
To add with the megging, I would climb around the attic and look for romex with the outer covering blown off, I did one where lightning hit the peak of the roof traveled down the wet outside of the roof to the gutters split and went down the gutter blew a hole in the back of the gutter and went in and blew a bath fan out of the ceiling, the other direction it went to where all the home runs went past this gutter and again blew a hole in the back of the gutter and arced to these home run and blew all the insulation off everyone of them, funny thing was none of them was shorted, they all meggered out good, the only reason we found them was because the drywall was also damaged and when it was removed it was obvious, look for holes in the gutter from up on the roof, lightning can and will do some strange things and follow some strange paths, but cover your you know what and be through.

A good snake camera would be a good investment if you deal with a few of these types of calls, also a good megger.
 
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