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Static electricity....again

Ok, I'm ready to burn the house down and move to Florida. I had a similar problem last winter. I live in Colorado and it's been snowing here like crazy. It is super dry here. My brother fried two pre amps last winter due to lightning bolts flying from his fingers to his pre amp anytime he touched the pre amp...

So here's what I have going on. I have all of my cables lifted off the ground with wooden blocks. My Equipment is plugged into a ps audio quintet, except for my amp which is plugged directly into the wall (porter port).

I don't have any remote controllers in my set-up so whenever I touch my equipment, I ground myself on a screw on the light switch first. I'll have so much electricity built up in my body that I can actually feel the hairs on my legs stand up when I do this.

Okay, well it has gotten to be so bad now that when I am just walking across the room, I can hear a few small pops coming out of my speakers. These are directly related to the static that is building up via my socks dragging across the carpet. I'm %100 sure of that.

My question is, what the heck do I do to remedy this problem before I damage any of my equipment? My house is probably 20 years old. Am I having these issues because the ground in my house is no good?

Btw, last winter when I was having these issues, I sprayed fabric softener all over and that seemed to work for, oh, about 20 minutes.

I'm going to get a humidifier and see how that helps. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated! I'm about ready to change my user name to Zues!
128x128b_limo
arnettpartners
312 posts
 
Hevac1,

Yes, I won't disagree. I don't have a reliable humidifier guage (what are they called?) right now and depend on the humidifier's read out where humidity is no doubt higher. So generally the humidity is not as high as the setting on the units. I only ran the water down the windows once just to see how much it would put out(doesn't take much to entertain me). I leave the door open on my new listening room in the basement. So far I don't have it carpeted--just concrete and wood and area rug. Has not been an issue. The other humidifier is on the landing of the split level house into open living room and kitchen. Leave laundry shute open on other end of hall to get as much circulation throughout the house. Depend on air circulation and osmosis. If anyone has any better ideas, I'm happy to try them.

I like the sound quality that I get from my hydration system such as it is, I like the air quality, I don't like messing with anti-static products, and my cats thank me.
mesch
3,514 posts
 
I use a humidifier in my room in winter. I also find that removing my shoes helps.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
With some rugs being barefoot makes it worse.
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
Obviously humidifiers are one of the most popular answers to this problem. As Elizabeth mentioned, boiling pots of water also will do the trick. It's simply a matter of adding water vapor to a dry environment. Folks who use vinyl, like me, are even more aware of these issues, as it manifests itself in many more 'pops' when listening. I find a good size room humidifier has solved that problem for me.
cerrot's avatar
cerrot
1,700 posts
 
I should buy the static mat but I do have a box of dryer sheets and they work fine. Right now, my first taste of 'light' static, all I need to do is to remember to touch one of my racks before I touch any gear and I am good to go. (and, easy to remember as I did fry some fuses last season on one of my amps from static (and the year before, and the year before...)I open my cd tray but then its remote only. When the static gets worse, I just rub my hands on a dryer sheet before I touch anything. I finally got the unscented ones so really no downside. The scented ones kind of made the man cave feel a bit 'girly'.
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