[gfmucci]

Originally Posted by SteveFromNY

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?

Very wise, Steve. I agree 100%. I had a similar lightning system installed last year as well. There are about 7 or 8 rods at the various peaks of my roof, including on top of my satellite dishes, vent pipes, grounds to the gas line outside, grounds to the gas lines in the attic. It doesn't prevent strikes, but it greatly increases the odds of leading the lightning into the ground and not INTO the house.

Even at that, I have identified the location of my gas meter and the shutoff valve and the large pliers that will be required to turn it one quarter turn clockwise to shut it off quickly if I need to.

Below is a photo of my gas line shutoff, marked "1". "2" is a 3/4" thick copper ground cable attached to the gas line.