Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - To all retired electricians and electrical engineers. Do Lightning Rods work?
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Old 08-06-2021, 08:43 AM
GrumpyOldMan GrumpyOldMan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFlorida View Post
No, not at all. I've been a power company lineman for 42 years, and when a strike happens to hit a lightning rod, the voltage goes to ground, but the EMF (the energy that flows around the voltage) will travel through the air and all of your sensitive electronics will be fried.
LOL!

Nice way to put it.

My neighbor (1/2 mile away) where we previously lived in the country put in their own lightning rod. It went up about 6 feet above their roof. It was about ten feet away from a pine tree that went up 30 feet higher.

That lightning rod was perfectly safe! Lightning was almost guaranteed to hit the tree and not the rod. I am sure a lineman you saw many cases of pines hit by lightning while the transmission line next to it had a lightning rod. Although, power companies are getting better about clearing out any trees too close the the transmission lines.