Should one ground a clothes line

[Industrial Toys]

I am just in the process of replacing a clothes line. The old one was lagged into the bricks of the house and attached to a tree at the far end. Now the tree is dead and I have installed an old salvaged (With wonderfull creosote) hydro pole. I will install a buried anchor to keep the pole plumb.

Question is, should I insulate the guy wire or use it as a ground for the pulley/cable system?

We get our fair share of lightning damage around here. Without a lick of insurance of any kind, I am running around unplugging things during storms, and have disconnect switches installed on electronic controlled appliances. Remarkably, the clothes line has never been hit, nor intoduced any stray charges into the house. I would have expected otherwise!

A customer of mine, had a clothes line attached to a very well grounded steel post. Lightning hit, and one could only find tiny bits of vinyl from the line scattered everywhere! Later is was discovered that the steel in the line had vaporized and actually burned holes in their brand new thermopane windows.

So maybe, I shouldn't ground it. I know every code and electrical authority will tell you, you can't go wrong with grounding. Ground everything!

One other question, that someone might know. Why are guy wires on utility poles insulated? Is it to stop possible electrocution if the upper hardware became live? Is it to stop electroalisis (sp?) shortening the life of the galvanized anchor?

 

[bcp]

Why are guy wires on utility poles insulated?

Not any that I've ever noticed, except lately a thin plastic tube over about the lower 8 feet. Before that, there used to be many that used a galvanized shield over the lower part. But most around here are fully bare.

Bruce

 

[CobyRupert]

One other question, that someone might know. Why are guy wires on utility poles insulated? Is it to stop possible electrocution if the upper hardware became live? Is it to stop electroalisis (sp?) shortening the life of the galvanized anchor?[/QUOTE]

Actually, insulating the guy wire from ground would increase the risk of electrocution if the upper hardware (and guy) became energized. With no fault current flowing to ground that opens a fuse (or opens the ground path when the metal burns up) the guy would stay energegized and you would become the ground path when you touch it. I don't know why guys are insulated from ground, although more dangerous, it would be more reliable (i.e. system continues to operate if there's a "short", but no path to ground). Utilities don't have to play by the same safety rules as the rest of us.

If there's no steel or other conductors in the cloths line, and it's a wooden pole, I wouldn't worry about it. Putting a grounded lightning rod on the pole will attract lightning.

 

[farmgirl19]

I think the colored plastic insulation is for visibility, so mower's, and others working near or around the wires don't "hang" themselves on it. Also makes the area one would hit a little thicker, so maybe less damaging. That is why it is only needed to go up about 8 feet.

 

[flyerdan]

I think the guy wire sleeve is more for visibility than insulation, as all the ones I see around here are safety yellow.

 

[BertZegers]

"and have disconnect switches installed on electronic controlled appliances"

A disconnect switch does not fully protect your equipment for lightning or surge. If the voltage is high enough, the current will jump the small gap in your switch.
If possible, pull the plug and move it away from the socket.

For your clothes line; grounding will make the current go into the ground but might attract lightning. Is there a plastic clothes line available?

Do you have an antenna, is it grounded? If lightning strikes your antenna it will go via your amplifier power supply into your house wiring and can do lots of damage.

Grounding the antenna makes it attract lightning(?) but will make the current go into the ground. Still the induction introduced can do a lot of damage in the house.
Damage depends on the amount of energy that is in the lightning. This can be little (burnt circuits) to huge.

What are other members thoughts?

Bert, retired electric.

 

[TCJatko]

I would ground it. Static discharge occurs when the accumulation of static potential exceeds the dielectric value of the insulating medium. Grounding allows the static charge to bleed off before it accumulates. It would have to be a very robust lightning protection system to deal with the millions of volts and hundreds of thousands of amperes associated with a direct strike.

 

[Loadstar]

We get our fair share of lightning damage around here. Without a lick of insurance of any kind, I am running around unplugging things during storms, and have disconnect switches installed on electronic controlled appliances. Remarkably, the clothes line has never been hit, nor intoduced any stray charges into the house. I would have expected otherwise!

Lightning just traveled through how many thousand feet of insulating air. You must have some really awesome disconnect switches if they stop lightning LOL. Kind of reminds me when people say it's that 1/2 of rubber tire that saves you from lightning in a car. We took a hit from lightning. It struck a tree in the yard, jumped to the fence, and came in the house through garage. Was very random as to what things were affected. Think it claimed a couple old tvs and a few lights switches. We were pretty lucky. I would say there is nothing wrong with grounding clothes line to the guy wire.

 

[teejk]

Bert!!!

Interesting discussion here not related to clothes lines. I was in my shop a month or so ago during a thunderstorm. It's a steel building 56'x30'. I saw bright flashes coming from a small hole that I drilled to get a length of coax cable out for radio reception.

The construction is such that it occured to me that the outside shell is one big lightening rod insulated from the interior steel by the 2x6 ladder wood framing on cement. Best I can figure is that the strikes were hitting the building and followed that tiny wire into the building (path of least resistance I guess). Was amazing to watch. No harm to anything in the shop at all because that all goes back to the house ground under the new "single point grounding" code.

So with new code and that "single point grounding"...is it permissable to ground anything anymore with ground rods that don't tie into the house ground?

 

[DB Pilot]

I did not ground a support cable for my security camera system. Because it was only keeping the camera wires off the driveway, not actually part of the security system. And it was not the tallest tree that the cable was attached to, so it would be highly unlikely for lightening to strike that particular tree. . If I had grounded that support cable then I think maybe that the lightening would not have traveled down the camera wires to the DVR and blackened up some of the camera connections, and destroyed the DVR and Hard Drive. :confused3: Phones were out for a day and new router for the computers needed. And yes we have surge protectors. The lightning hit the tree and you can see the path it took right to the metal hook in the tree, then stopped and traveled down the support cable as well as the camera cables.

I'm now thinking "If it is anywhere near or connected to your house, barn, garage, etc. , ground it." :2cents: