I generate so much satic electricty at work, How do I?

Question

Every time I touch the metal file cabinet at work, I always get shocks. They hurt my fingers. I also shock people I touch at work. This always happens! It's annoying! How do I reduce the amount of electricity I generate?

Answer 1

Some ways to reduce the problem of excess static electricity are to try to get more humidity in the air, change the materials or modify their surface, and ground yourself before touching things, whenever possible.

Increase humidity
Static electricity is more active when the air and materials are dry. The humidity is normally lower in the winter, and heating the house further reduces the humidity. Also, locations with a desert climate usually have very low relative humidity.

One thing you can do is to use a humidifier to raise the humidity in the house. That may help a little.

Change materials
When certain materials rub together, they build up static electricity. Items that commonly rub together to cause static electricity are:

Clothes rubbing on your skin
Pajamas rubbing on your skin and the sheets in the bed
Clothes rubbing on furniture and car seats
The soles of your shoes rubbing against the rug or floor

Moisturize skin
Perhaps just putting lotion on you hands may be sufficient, since shocks and sparks usually come from touching objects with your hands.

Clothes
When you slide out of a car or off furniture in the house, you can create static electricity if the combination of materials is right. Try putting a cover on the seat, changing the materials or your clothes, or perhaps spraying things with an anti-static spray, such as is used to prevent static cling. I'm not sure how long the anti-static spray lasts or if continued use can discolor things.

Try using pajamas and/or sheets made of different materials. Cotton does not seem to develop as much static electricity as some artificial fibers.

Soles of shoes
People get shocks from walking on the rug in the house, jumping on a trampoline, or playing basketball in the gym. Certain synthetic rubber soles on shoes create a lot of static electricity. Experiment with different shoes.

The reason you build up static electricity usually comes from walking on a rug with certain types of shoes, when the weather is very dry. Static electricity is more common in the winter, because the air is often dry.

On a day that you get a lot of sparks, you can experiment walking on the rug with different shoes to see what type of soles create the most (or least) static electricity.

Unless you can change the type of shoes you wear (or not wear shoes at all), it is difficult to stop the problems of sparks. The only other solution is to anticipate the sparks. You can touch some non-conducting material, such as a wooden door, before you touch something metal. This will allow some of the electrical charges to leave your body.

Ground yourself
Another idea is to use a metal object like a key and touch other metal things first with key. This will cause the spark to fly from the key and not your finger. That is much more comfortable. You can also use a ring or even a thimble to move the shock from your finger to the metal object.

Answer 2

First try to raise the humidity slightly over 50% . With that much humidity it will tend to leak off. When u need to touch the file cabinet ,first hold firm on to the key and touch it with the key. Some times u can hear it spark but it does not hurt. Aircondition lowers the humidity.

Answer 3

Is your office is on carpet? If it is, the rubbing of your shoes & the carpet makes negative (or positive, not sure) neutrons meet other negative (or positive) neutrons and that's the cause of the static. Static guard works well (it just stinks!! smell like white glue for kids), you can prevent with some bounce sheets in your dryer.

I also get static when I use the vacuum at work (on carpet). When I press on the button of the elevator (in metal) I make electricity.

Answer 4

Look at the soles of your shoes ... they are probably not 'rubber' (or any 'plastic' type that is also 'resistant' to the buildup of electricity) ... So either buy new shoes with 'rubber (-like) souls and you should have much less trouble with the 'shocks' than you have now.

Answer 5

Use Static Guard on your clothes, chair and carpet within your cubical. Pick up your feet when you walk - shuffling will lead to a large amount of static.

Answer 6

Spray your clothes with static guard.
keep a can at work.
sold at grocery stores everywhere in the laundry isle.

Answer 7

May be you are very attractive. And all charges are attracted to you.

Answer 8

don't wear tight pans