Static electricity Killin me.

B_limo First the fact you are getting shocked means you have a well grounded system. But most people don't realize that when you feel a shock it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20K volts. Good zaps have been measured to 70k. It's all voltage with no current. That being said it over time will cause some damage. Keep touching that heater vent first and if you don't like the feel of the shock hold a coin and touch it to the heater vent.

"over time will cause some damage.

Static electricity damaged the input chip in my Levinson tranport.

I did what Theo recommends...ran a length of lamp cord from ground connection on back of surge protector to side of wood equipment table. Just touch the bare wire end before touching the equipment.

There was an old post on A'gon a while back where the ground wire was connected to a brass door knob mounted on a small wood panel. Dressed things up a bit. The writer included instructions on putting a resistor in the circuit, as I recall. This reduced/eliminated the "pain" of the shock when you grounded yourself to the knob.

I actually killed my wall thermostat w/static elec once and had this problem w/my stereo in cold, dry Virginia. I solved it by grabbing one leg of my metal rack before touching a component.

I found that using a humidifier and not using rubber soled slippers/shoes worked for me.