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Originally Posted by villagetinker
I would like to see a discussion of lightning protection (sharp pointy objects) on your roof, versus the devices SECO uses at some of their substations, these look like a large Dandelion bloom. I worked in this industry and these are designed to DISSIPATE the charge and avoid the lightning strike. Sharpe pointed objects then at ATTRACT lightning strikes. These are applied to ATTRACT the strike to the protective wiring and away from the roof. May point is why not have the devices that dissipate the charge installed?
Looking forward to an interesting discussion.
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The Villages Lightning Study Group did do research on this type of device and the data is inconclusive on if it actually works. The theory is good and there are a lot of entities testing these devices. There is some thought that conventional lightning rods can and o "bleed off" some of the charge in the air potentially preventing a strike but only if the charge is not great enough to jump and strike.
Conventional lightning rods used today do not attract lightning in the sense that if the ionization of the air over your neighbors house was prime for a strike, the lightning charge would not divert and hit your house with lightning rods instead. It just doesn't work that way. We have actual case data on strikes here in the Villages where homes were hit with a home next to them and across the street with lightning protection systems. We also have cases where a home was hit with a very large tree behind it in the yard. Lightning struck the house and not the tree. The problem when analysing lightning strikes is its unpredictible. It depends on the ionization of the air at any given time above your house during a severe storm. All the lightning protection system does is, if lightning strikes, instead of punching a hole in your roof and then ricocheting around your attic like a bullet destroying everything in it's path searching for earth ground, the low electrical potential of a lightning rod on the roof will send the charge safely to ground.
If you are interested, next time we do a presentation, come by and see what the group has to say and you can speak to John Shewchuk our resident meteorologist about the conditions where lightning strikes.