Quote:
Originally Posted by GMONEY
instead of just a rod it seems there should be multiple rods or a Lightning protection system. Looked online and have supplied a link. From reading up, dont think just one rod will do the trick. You need to have a system of rods or other protection items set up. Even then that will not protect from a direct strike.
During the storms yesterday in which this home was struck, a rather large strike hit here at our plant beside TV. There was a rather bright purplish light followed by a sizzling noise then the loudest boom. Then a bunch of smoke came off the ground. It went into the ground, but melted all the paint off the fences around the area, and still knocked out all of our computer systems and managed to fry one rather expensive piece of equipment that is hooked to a expensive surge protection system. The strike was about 100 yards from the main building. It managed to cause us alot of headaches at that distance. Had it been a direct hit on the building, our protection system would not have been able to save us from alot of damage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightni...tection_system |
GMONEY - I found the following excerpt from the article to be extremely important.
"No lightning protection system can be relied upon to "contain" or "control" lightning completely (nor thus far, to prevent lightning strikes), but they do seem to help immensely on most occasions of lightning strikes"
A properly installed LPS will mitigate much of the damage potentially caused by lightning. A google of pictures of lightning strikes will show many pictures of tall buildings being directly struck by lightning. So structures do get hit, and all of these tall buildings are built with LPS. So you can draw the conclusion they do in fact work, although nothing is ever gauranteed. One site I found says the Empire State Building gets hit directly between 50 and 100 times per year. And I've not heard of it being dammaged.
I had a system installed on my home in TV last year right after the house in Sunset Pointe got destroyed. My system includes specific grounding for the gas lines in the attic and the gas main, as well as the normal "rods" on the roof. I hope to never be able to tell you it worked or it didn't - but on the off chance that it would work to mitigate damage, the investment seemed minor. Frankly, I can't understand why everyone in TV doesn't get one installed. In my entire life I've heard of a few trees being hit, maybe a neighborhood transformer, but since last year, I've seen 3 strikes that destroyed 1 home and severly damaged the others, and heard about 2 or 3 more. So the Lightning Capital of the World (as Central FL is sometimes called) lives up to its name.
Look around - the fire house on Buena Vista at Liberty Park, and most of the buildings in LSL have protection. All the airports have them. All the major municipal buildings have them. Why would they have them if they don't work?