Lightning and circuit breakers, Sparks when reset?

Question

If lightning hits your power lines would it cause all your circuit breakers to flip off or could it just cause one of them to flip off?

There were a lot of storms and lightning real close to our house and one of the circuit breakers turned off during the night and cannot be reset. The first time I reset it, it stayed in the on position for several seconds and then switched off. Now it switches back off immediately and sparks right behind the switch.

Any ideas what the problem could be? Does this sound like storm damage or something else?

The breaker is marked "Lights" and feeds all outlets and light switches in the front half of the house on both the main floor and basement.

Answer 1

Disconnect anything plugged into the circuit controlled by the breaker. If the breaker still fails to reset, it has become damaged and needs replacement. If it does reset and the circuit works fine, something connected to the circuit has been damaged and needs to be replaced or repaired.

Answer 2

The voltage and amperage in lightning is much higher than a household breaker is rated for. The lightning caused internal damage to the circuit that it flowed through. The damage could be to the breaker alone or to the house wiring or to the lights, outlets, switches, whatever is plugged in. You need to get a qualified electrician to come out and look at the problem. Please do not try to fix it yourself because to an untrained person this could be very dangerous

Answer 3

Everyone has given good advice you can never go wrong call a professional. Load shedding the circuitry (unplugging everything in that circuit) will tell you if there is a problem with a load or if it is an actual problem with the house circuit.

I would also suggest replacing the circuit breaker to see if it is bad. Lightning has a tendency to knock out circuit breakers...

Answer 4

What does the breaker feed? So yes it could be from storm damage. By the sound of it the breaker or whatever is connected to it has a short . BE careful and call a professional.

Answer 5

Lightning is one of the least understood of all natural phenomena. No one truly understands all that it does, or can do, but one thing is certain and that is that lightning does not follow the rules of logic or even physics: it makes its own rules.

One of the rules established by lightning is if something you have was damaged directly by lightning, , you should never attempt to repair it. Trash it and replace it. Do not ask questions because no one has the answer(s).


Look at every single item that is/was connected to the affected circuit and see if it is still functioning at 100 %. If it is functioning at anything less than 100%, trash the unit, no matter what it is.

This will definitely sound like someone (me) cannot think straight, but the opposite is true. Lightning is not simple and it does not follow the rules of any of man's sciences. Anything damaged by lightning should be replaced, without exception.

Answer 6

Since you know which outlet is the cause of the short.I'd(with breaker out) try runing it back from the outlet to the breaker(chances are the problem is in the outlet or at a junction ie daisy chained with other outlets) by takeing the outlets off the wire and measureing toward the breaker at each outlet till you find the problem.

Answer 7

Unplug everything in your house, including lights. Take out the bulbs. Try switching the breakers on again. If it throws, please call a professional, you've got serious issues. A wire may have melted itself in a wall. That would be bad.

Answer 8

Sounds like u have dead short unplug any thing in the wall sockets and try to reset