Fact or fiction? You should never shower during a thunderstorm.?

Question

My fiance and I keep having this debate. I'll tell the kids to hurry get their shower if a storm is coming and he'll say it doesn't make a difference, you're in the house, in the shower and your grounded. I don't agree with this.

Answer 1

i thinks its possible. the electric current could travel through the pipes then travel through the stream of water coming out of the shower. that's why you're not supposed to pee on an electric fence.

Answer 2

It's nonsense. The house is grounded.

Answer 3

I think it's totally fake. A) Because I've never heard of anyone being shocked taking a shower during a thunderstorm. B) I think it's highly unlikely that lightning will strike a house or apartment unless it's a really tall building with a 2 mile high antenna sticking out of it. But there is a possibility that I'm wrong because I've never taken a shower during a thunderstorm because I mostly outside getting drenched by the rain watching the lighting light up and streak the sky.

Answer 4

A basic principle of electricity is that it will always follow the path of least resistance. If lightning were to strike your house, it would take the shortest and lowest resistance path to ground. Metal has a low electrical resistance (is a good conductor), but human beings have a relatively high resistance (we're fairly bad conductors).

Lightning "wants" to get to ground as quickly and easily as possible. Air is a bad electrical conductor, so lightning will seek out the shortest route (highest point) with the lowest resistance. People aren't great conductors, but we're better than air, so that's why they're often hit if they're standing out in the open.

If, for some bizarre reason, you had a shower stall outside on an upstairs terrace, then it would be unwise to shower during a thunderstorm since it would be possible for lightning to be "attracted" to the shower head which is connected to a metal pipe which, at some point, goes underground. Even if lightning were to strike this peculiar arrangement, it's unlikely that anyone showering would be electrocuted, but they might well be hurt indirectly by the damage the strike does.

Assuming the house has the usual metal water pipes, a normal indoor shower is not dangerous during a thunderstorm because, even if lightning should strike the house and even if its path down to earth was partly via the water pipes in the walls, the electrical charge will not jump out of the shower head and pass though the human standing under it. This would be a violation of a basic law of physics: the electricity would be taking a high-resistance path in preference to a low-resistance path.

A human being, even one covered in water, has a much greater resistance to the passage of electricity than the pipe the electricity is already in. Also, fresh water in itself has a quite high electrical resistance, the spray of water coming out of the shower head - being composed of water droplets and air - is an even worse conductor and the tray on which the showering person is standing is probably plastic or some other material with a high electrical resistance.

Bottom line: your fiancé is right that you don't need to worry, but for not quite the right reasons. However, if you remain unconvinced and if he has any sense, he'll allow you to continue to hurry the kids if you start to feel apprehensive.

Answer 5

I've heard about that, how you can get shocked through the water if lightening hits or something. I don't really believe it though; I've showered during a storm lots of times and nothings ever happened to me.  

Answer 6

fiction

Answer 7

You are right to not agree. Lightning can strike the house and travel through the electrical system. If that system is grounded to a water pipe, or lightning strikes the pipe, or near the pipe, you can be electricuted in the shower.

During a thunder storm, you do NOT want to be grounded because the lightning will travel through you to the ground. The house pipes typically do go into the ground at some point but maybe, for whatever reason, this ground is not sufficient or there is non-conducting coupling, the house wasn't built to code, etc, whatever. Now there is you in the shower and here come the lightning, hitting your house, travling through the plumbing and....looking one way, see's maybe some plastic or a path of high resistance for whatever reason, and looking another way see's you....glorius you, covered in impurity laden water with all of those wonderfully conductive ions, and maybe somewhere under you there is a pipe that IS grounded very well, or an outlet that is, or some such thing. You become the favored path because you are conductive and for whatever reason, better grounded.

You ground yourself when working with small, low voltage/current electronics to prevent an electrostatic shock. By grounding yourself you dissipate the static charge before it can do any harm.

With high voltage/current things, such as lightning, you DON'T want to be a path, and so want to be insulted from the ground. This is why fuse boxes used to be placed high off the ground. So you would have to stand on a wooden crate to reach them, separating yourself from the ground. This is also why you are generally safe in a car during a thunderstorm. The car has thick rubber tires that insulate it from the ground. However, electricity CAN travel through insulators if the electric field is strong enough. This is called dielectric breakdown and this is actually what is going on during a thunderstorm. The cloud becomes negatively charged at the bottom and positively charged at the top. The charge in the clouds builds to such an extent that the normally insulating air between the air and ground becomes polarized, and the negative charge in the bottom of the cloud pushes away the negative charge in the ground leaving it positively charged, and so you have seperation of charge, opposite charges that attract, and a conductive path, and suddenly you have cloud to ground lightning.

Answer 8

If your house would be struck by lightning during a thunderstorm and does not have lightning rods then the lightning will take the path of least resistance which would be electrical wires and metal pipes and water.

So showering during a thunderstorm has a higher risk than not.

However if your house has no history of being struck by lightning and it not the highest point around the risk is lowered

The LSA recommends the following guidelines to stay safe during electrical storms:.

    -- While indoors, stay off corded telephones, computers and video games and don't stand near open windows or doorways.  Avoid contact with electrical appliances, plumbing, sinks, baths and faucets and never take a bath or shower during a storm.

When I was a kid our house got hit and all the bulbs in our chandelier exploded and it cracked the ceiling in our dining room and wall in a bedroom