OT. lightning and a pole barn

I was kind of curious about how safe it is to be in a metal pole barn during a thunderstorm?
Barry

Metal roof? If so and it is well grounded, its a very safe place as long as you're not touching the walls.

If I had my druthers Id rather be inside the metal pole building (near its center NOT the metal siding) then outside. If it gets a hit most of the current is likely to find ground paths throughout the metal instead of meeeeeeeeee BUT NO WARRANTY IT CAN TAKE ABOUT ANY PATH OR PATHS IT FINDS. Similar, Id prefer to be inside my cars protective conductive shell versus outside it if a strike occurs.

John T

Depends on your desire and definition of safety. Driving on a 2 or 4 lane road has you about two feet from death every time you meet a car, or one passes you. Being in a barn would be safer than being out in the open. There are a lot of options for lightning to strike besides the barn and the lightning will follow the best path to ground. As long as thats not you its fine. I've been in more than one barn when it was hit, or hit close. Its an experience I dont care to repeat very often but it beats being out in the open.

Little known fact is that if you have a wire that is hollow it will carry just as much current as one that is solid because the electricity travels on the out side of a conductor. It is also proven that if your in the middle of a field in a lighting storm and you have a big barrel out there your safer in that barrel then out in the open again because current travels on the out side of metals. All my pole barns have the metal all the way down to the ground so yep your pretty safe in them and a few are real safe since that are all metal as in the poles go 3 or so feet in the ground and there pipe

Probably be safe in the building away from the siding. Just get out if it starts burning. Friend lost a metal sided pole building some years ago. Passerby saw lightning strike the building, seconds later every rafter and sheathing board in the building was burning. Burned to the ground along with all machinery in it.

All the poles in your pole sheds are PIPE???

One caution: If you have overhead electrical wires stay away from the electrical fuse boxes during a thunderstorm/lightning srike. Especially if the wiring system is older or not properly grounded.

Used to have a confinement hog barn where we often lost a few hogs near the fuse box whenever the farmstead was hit by lightning, even though the barn was never hit directly. The fuse box was next a door that was usually open for cooling in the summer time, and rain would wet the concrete floor under the fuse box. When lightning stuck the yard, the lightning would follow overhead electrical wires to the barn's fuse box, blow the fuses, and the heat would pop open the fuse box door. From there the current arced from the fuse box to the wet concrete floor inside the buildings, killing hogs sleeping on the floor within up to five feet of the box. Don't know how many more were injured, just removed the dead ones. A second barn without an open door close to the fuse box had the slimilar problems, but always fewer hogs were lost there.

A lightning strike usually knocked out the well's water pump fuses, and sometimes the pump motor too, all an eighth of a mile away from the farmstead. Sometimes the main fuse at the transformer would blow, REC had to replace that one with a bucket truck.

Dry buildings generally were not affected beyond blown fuses, and maybe an open fuse box door. Buildings were the electicity was shut off at the fuse box were not affected. Any building with much moisture around a fuse box could get arcing inside the building. All those buildings were wired in the 1960's before ground wires were required in electrical circuits. I now think many of those hogs would not have been lost if the fuse boxes had been properly grounded.

A dry machine shed with modern wiring should not be too bad, but to avoid getting shocked, I still wouldn't let anyone stay within 10 feet of a fuse box during a thunderstorm. Your ears will be ringing bad enough after a close lighting stike anyway.

Yep my shop and tractor shed have 2 inch pipe for the poles and also has I-beams welded to them for the roof beams. My hay barn was made from an old grain bed semi that was cut in half and set on the ground then has pipes driven into the ground about 3 foot in 6 or more places so as to lock it to the ground and then has I-beams welded to it with truss made of iron deck section beams for the roof to bolt down to

I have lightening rods on all of my building now. I had a metal shed hit by lightening twenty years ago. My wife happened to be up as saw it hit. It was 2 am. She said the lightening hit and as her eyes adjusted back she could see every nail on the building glow. From the strike to full burning was less than ten minutes. You could see where every thing metal touched the wood it was burnt.

So I installed rods and also grounded the metal. I have not seen any strikes since then but they may have happened and just went to ground.

We used to have a wind mill that would get hit all of the time. It would blow the pump apart. My Grand Dad got real good at brazing the thing back together.

As for electrical boxes. I was standing in a neighbors free stall barn during a rain storm. We where just setting around BSing after getting rained out baling hay. Lightening hit the concrete slab about fifty feet from one of the doors. It walked across the concrete and jumped to the light switch by the barn door. It blew the switch and box clear off the wall. Burnt the wiring clear in to. Missed one of the guys by just inches. We all just about had a under garment problem. LOL

I was at a farm sale where a few guys were shocked when lightning hit a pole shed during the sale. Nobody was hurt from it. Jim

The metal roof and siding makes a 'Faraday shield'. Ditto for the outside of a (metal) car body. So you shouldn't get the electrical effects of a lightning strike directly, but you might get secondary effects depending on where it ends up after the hit.

There was a US forest Ranger that got struck by lightning many times while driving his car.A friend got struck in a boat and at his kitchen.Ive had some close calls.A fellow was building a pole barn with used power line poles.He saw lightning hit one of the poles and saw smoke coming from the base of the poles.He put it out with water.Poles are treated with metal compounds now.You cant predict what lightning will do.