Fire in Pinellas
 

Can anyone recommend a company that installs lightening rods for homes? After yesterday's lightening strike, we want to have protection installed. Looking for a company that A-1 in their field.

Can anyone remember the name of the villager who goes around and explains the dangers of lightning? He also has a regular column in the POA Bulletin. He and his partner live here, do NOT sell lightning rods or suggest anyone to install them. He does explain what is a good installation. Try to get him and his partner to come to talk to your neighborhood group if you can. He is very well informed and is not selling anything. He tells about all forms of lightning and will explain away some common myths such as if your neighbor has lightning rods you are protected.


There are good installers and others who aren't doing it properly according to him, but he won't name names. He purposely went to the University of Florida to gain information on lightning after he moved here as he was alarmed about the lightning strikes in central Florida. We ARE the lightning capital of the US in this area of Florida. He shares his information at no charge and he is well informed, believe me. He spoke to our neighborhood group. His screen name is lightning on this forum. You can send him a PM.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...156213.graphic

Two homes in a little more than a year. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

First one on May 8, 2013 and one yesterday, 6/15/14.

I think I will check into what protection is needed!!!!!

This is the ninth home in eight years that has been made completely unlivable due to a lightning strike here in The Villages. Fortunately no one was hurt.

We used A-1 Lightning Protection 1-866-465-0620. Jeff the owner gave a 1 hour demonstration of everything he was going to do and why it had to be done that way. His installation crew was courteous and did an awesome job. :BigApplause:

Good Post.

We used Advanced Lightning Protection from Ocala. Had ours installed in 2010.
The cost at that time was close to $1600 for a Lantana. Price included a surge protector. The system was UL inspected and that was an additional fee. Fee was $325 at that time. I watched the install and walked along with the UL inspector when he did his inspection.

I am not sure why one wants lightning rods on there house. Would it be the same like putting a cell tower in your front yard?
Where does the lighting go after it hits the rods? Does it go to your neighbors house?

Lightning rod - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"A lightning rod (US, AUS) or lightning conductor (UK) is a metal rod or metallic object mounted on top of an elevated structure, such as a building, a ship, or even a tree, electrically bonded using a wire or electrical conductor to interface with ground or "earth" through an electrode, engineered to protect the structure in the event of lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it will preferentially strike the rod and be conducted to ground through the wire, instead of passing through the structure, where it could start a fire or cause electrocution.

"A lightning rod is a single component in a lightning protection system. Lightning rods are also called finials, air terminals or strike termination devices. The lightning rod requires a connection to earth to perform its protective function. Lightning rods come in many different forms, including hollow, solid, pointed, rounded, flat strips or even bristle brush-like. The main attribute common to all lightning rods is that they are conductive."

You have to take in consideration that with thousands of homes in TV this is going to occur. Think about it? With all the square miles of homes here lightning is going to get one every once and a while!

Check out this link.
 

In Southeast, Ground Rods May Not Protect Homes Against Lightning » News » University of Florida

We had a lightning strike hit between the neighbor's house and our's on June 7, 2014. The electrician insisted on getting power surge protectors. It does not sound like lightning rods are the solution in areas with sandy soil. It does not always conduct the electricity well so it goes back into the house.

Be careful----this situation is perfect for a scam. While living in The Village of Hadley a few years ago, a couple of guys approached me while in my front,yard that supposedly installed lightning rods. They said for $900.00 they could fix me up so I would never have to worry about lightning again. But if I let them do it today they would knock off $100.00.

Of course, I sent them on their way. I'm no expert but after a bit of reading about lightning rods I wasn't certain I wanted them on my house. I will pass until further research.

OP, is correct to look for a recommendation of a reputable company if you are going to have lightning rods installed on your home.

Only you the homeowner can decide if you need to provide a lightning protection system (lightning rods). If you do you would be wise to select an installer that is listed by both Underwriters Laboratories and the Lightning Protection Institute. See the back issues on the POA4us.org web site for names and phone numbers. We have yet to find a door-to-door installer that meets the above.

50,000 homes in The Villages. 9 allegedly damaged by lightning in 8 years. So the odds of being hit by a damaging lightning strike are pretty small. But if it makes you feel better, spend the money on lightning rods.

How do the rods look on the house? Unsightly? Please editorialize.
Thank you.

I believe that number would be a lot higher for just damaged homes like with lightning strikes which just take out circuit breakers and maybe TV sets, computers, cell phones, etc. These seem quite a bit more frequent than 9 in 8 years. This is about one of those total loss hits-- Lightning strike destroys Villages home | News - Home

If you look at the posts on lightning strikes in the Villages you might get an idea of this. There have been several mentioned on TOTV over the past few weeks.

Hits the rods which have a cable to the ground,attached to them.

The ones in nearby in Lynnhaven are only about a foot high and they have at least 6 of these on the house. They fit with the exterior rather well. I do not know where these neighbors got these.

They do not look too bad, being only 1-2 feet long. When installed correctly, they certainly look better than flames coming out of your roof.
And, they do not look any worse than the plumbing and exhaust stacks already poking out of your roof and certainly better than SolaTube bubbles.


We have all that on our roof and so be it.:D

So let's project the number to 200 damaging hits a year. So the odds are 50,00/200 or whatever other number you want to use. Odds still high against a hit.

bumping. The poster, Lightning is the expert I was talking about. Beware of scammers as Just Jim says.


I am very glad as is anyone that the couple did not lose their lives in the fire, but they have lost a lot of things that were selected for their dream home that cost almost a million dollars. They are things, but there is no shame in the things we have and love. The pictures, the albums, the things passed down to us and the home itself, the product of a life's work and saving and planning. They are being very brave in the face of all this.

do a Google image search............lots of pictures.

Oh Oh...

We're moved here 4 months now. The Villages. Land of STDs, Love Bugs, Sink Holes, Torrential rains and storms, Sex on the Square, Lightening hits and fires...

What's next - Locusts? Plague? End of Days?

At least we can play golf for a while... right?

:gc:

Exactly...deanFL. We just bought a house and I keep reading about more and more stuff. I have to stay focused on the bigger picture and that is we bought the house, will retire soon and play lots and lots of golf....maybe I should just stop reading his stuff!

Not much worry of blizzards, mudslides, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, yearly hugh tornadoes, etc.

Be aware, it's not just a direct lightning strike that can get you. We have lightning rods (bought a resale & they came with the house) and still suffered over $1K in damages last year (fridge & TV electronics fried). Our neighbors had a big metal rod holding a bird feeder. Lightning hit that rod and the surge is what caused our damage. We now have the SECO-installed surge protector in addition to the lightning rods.

Paying one time for lightning rods as an insurance policy is actually less painful than paying nearly the same amount every year for homeowners insurance. Peace of mind versus rolling the dice.

Well if you check the national weather...the upper Midwest is having some severe stuff going on as I type. Tornado warnings and watches for at least 2 states (maybe 3 or 4)....no matter where one lives you will find "something" to be concerned about. Tsnami's, earthquakes (oh there was one of those in Oklahoma today), volcano's, wildfires......where in the world would one find a safe place???

Most people don't even notice them. Drive around Sunset Ridge off of Bailey Trail Also, note that all buildings at Sumter Landing have lightning rods.

End of Days won't happen until the Entertainment Dept figures out how to package it at the squares... and gets the merchants to do a special "end of Days" sale.

It is the installers job to get a good ground. At my home the three driven 8-ft ground rods met the test. I have heard at some homes they had to drive rods to 30 ft. We have discussed the matter with Dr. Radkov as we believe that the report issued a few years ago was being misinterpreted as reason not to install lightning rods. Also, the electric utilities in this state have been grounding their equipment in this soil for over a 100 years.

Lightning rods were on my house when I bought it (re-sale home) along with the SECO whole house surge protection and I also have SECO individual surge protectors on my televisions and computer.

Plenty of "piece of mind" based upon statistics alone. But paranoia sets in every time some remote incident happens in The Villages, at least on this site. So, be afraid, be very afraid!

Get lightning rods, sink hole coverage, carry a concealed gun, put anti theft devices on your golf cart, buy flood insurance, get extra dead bolts, don't use your credit card anywhere and on and on.

It never ends!

We have been tossing around the idea of instaling lightning rods even before we moved to Florida. When in VA, the house behind us and the house across the street in front of us were both damaged by lightning. It is a crying shame that the insurance companies don't give you any discount for installing lightning rods. They must be of some benefit. Have you ever noticed that every building at Walt Disney World and all The Villages buildings commercial property have them? If they weren't beneficial, do you think they would be there? I think we will have to rethink the installation.

I thought about lightening rods and did the math. About one house a year in The Villages burns from a lightening strike. I think there must be about 50,000 homes in The Villages, so the odds are that my house will burn from lightening (being conservative) less than once every 40,000 years. Since fire from lightening is insured, lightening rods, even if they are 100% effective, appear to be a really expensive insurance.

They aren't cheap if done properly. I understand the hesitation.

$1,500 is really expensive? Might try the math again. Try doing the "what if" decision making approach. You might have insurance to rebuild your home, but what are your photos, documents, cash, jewelry and loss of use of the home worth?

Yesterday at the gym I was talking to a neighbor of the home that was struck on Isleworth Circle. Some of you might know that the house had a 5 car garage. She said the owners had an ATV, an RV, a couple of motorcycles and a boat. All the adult toys and mounted in the attic of the garage was an air compressor so they could fill the tires of any vehicle when they wanted.

I was thinking that if the roof was hit by lightning, that compressor in the attic might of been the reason the fire took off like it did. All those vehicles in the garage each with a tank filled with gas probably didn't help either.

I don't understand why the compressor would be of any consequence. It is just a tank filled with compressed air. I can understand the vehicles with tanks full of fuel once the strike was made, but not the compressor.