To all retired electricians and electrical engineers. Do Lightning Rods work?
 

Do Lightning rods, properly installed, safely direct lightning strikes that hit your home down into the earth near your home?

Or is this a scam?

They work, but they are not worth the cost. Your homeowners insurance will cover lightning damage.

The POA had a series on lightning rods a couple of years ago with expert input. The result was they can be effective IF properly installed by a certified tech.

Yes they work, but if lightning hits one, everything electronic in your house will be toast anyway.

No first-hand knowledge but the consensus seems to be that they work.

Insurance will cover much of your damage, and maybe all. What insurance will not cover is the hassle to deal with the damage and damage to any irreplaceable items.

There are a lot of houses in the Villages that have never been hit by lightning so chances are good you won't have a problem. I have never won the lottery but I keep on trying because there's always the chance that next time it will be me.

Most of the time they work. However the electrical strike must dissipate somewhere, usually in the long steel ground rods alongside your house. The near-strike can still fry electronics, appliances, AC units.

Bottom line, recommend buying good homeowners insurance

You may get a small discount on your insurance, maybe 3 percent.

If your next-door neighbor has one high enough and on your side of their house you are already protected.

if they don't have one already, I would drop them a hint about how much THEY need one.

Lightning looks for the least resistant path to the ground (lightning rod) and the one that is closest to where the lightning is coming from - high lightning rods are very yummy to lightning.

For the most part, they are not worth it, good homeowners insurance will cover damage less expensively than the lightning rod.

Best to buy one for your neighbor

I will regret posting this BUT!
If your house gets hit by lightning, start play the lottery! The odds of a lightning hitting your house is in the millions.
Furthermore why would you want to attract lightning to your home with lightning rods on your roof!
Its a personal preference and a waste of money!
Being all sand in Florida the conductivity to ground is minimum!
Furthermore your footer in your home has rebar around throughout your footer that your main electrical panel home ground rod is hooked too.
Now if you get a direct hit you would be electrifying your home electrical system.
Either way Bye Bye to all your electrical equipment.
Just be sure your insurance on the home is well covering your expensive electrical equipment and invest in a main panel surge suppressor and APC on your electrical Equipment.
I will not answer or elaborate further, there are to many know it all here and will debate this!
This is coming from 42 years in the business with electrical engineering background.
Let the negativity start LOL

OMG! On this site that is like inviting a vampire into your home:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

Recent Villages Presentation-what I recall
 

Check my information. People installing lightening rods do not need to be licensed so the work done may not be proper. Installers should be listed with UL-underwriters laboratory-passed tests etc.

Cost depending on size of home etc is about 3,000. It should be inspected. regularly.
Surely a new roof, a paint job etc may mess it up.

Does not make sense to me but, I thought I knew that lightening will take the easiest path to ground. Yet, they directly said being next to a water tower for example that are high and have lightening rods on them does not protect you-nor does your neighbor having lightening rods.

Those serge protectors, the ones that you plug your TV into and cost like $20 or $30 do have some value. Mistake that most people make, INCLUDING ME, for your computer, TV etc you want to buy one that also protects the coaxial signal cable.

Things we all think we know. Lightening can and does strike in the same place. Just cause you home was hit once, the odds of being hit a second time are exactly the same.
A car is not likely to be struck but, truth I did not understand this, it has nothing to do with rubber tires and insulation. A bike, this is Florida lightening capital, you are a prime target for a lightening strike. As I often ride my bike, I've been often caught in the rain.
Golfers-you are prime targets. Old trick. You can hear lightening coming on an AM radio,does not work on FM.































am
Florida is not number one for lightening strikes in the US.
Somewhere in the Midwest has beat us for number one. Nebraska? It is close. Should we try harder?

Just Sayin'
 

According to the National Weather Service, a person has a 1-in-15,300 chance of getting struck by lightning in their lifetime, defined as an 80-year span. That makes your odds of getting struck by lightning nearly 20,000 times higher than hitting the winning numbers for this week's jackpot.Jan 14, 2021

Even if you get lighting rods I think it has to be tested every so often to make sure we are working. Not just one and done

Lightening
 

Oklahoma

Lps
 

Yes they work. My house was hit a couple of years ago & we didn't even know it until someone mentioned that one of our rods was crooked. We called the installer who checked the rod and confirmed the lightning strike. Insurance doesn't help, if your house burns down or is so damaged that it is uninhabitable.

Indirect lightning strikes are another story. That is why you should have a 3 prong protection: lightning protection system on the house; SECO or panel surge protection; & in-home surge protection on each valuable electronic devise.

Lighting rods
 

In my opinion when you live in a group of houses close to each other, that you are attracting the lighting to your house.

Remit chance of lightning striking your home
 

My home has been hit three times. Seems the odds are against me.

Remote chance of lightning striking your home
 

My home has been hit three times. Seems the odds are against me.

Our lightning rod system was put in by A-1 with a good surge protector on the electrical box. We also have small individual surge protectors on all of our electronics and appliances. Had a strike several years ago and had no damage to anything. Although we have a grounded gas line running through the attic, we felt the cost was worth avoiding any hassle/and or fire.
Our outdoor pool control box though, was toasted once by a ground strike near a neighbor, so make sure your pool electronics has its own separate grounding.

Agree, similar experience here. They are a risk reduction. Replacing the major appliances in your home is not fun. Especially now with most everything on bacj order.

Google Len Hathaways articles in the V-N online news for good info.

Aware of at least three lightening strikes In The Villages the past two month.

Several have hit the metallic gas lines which run through the attic.

. . .

Firefighters declare ‘miracle’ after Villager escapes injury in lightning strike
By
Meta Minton
June 20, 2021
A Village of Monarch Grove man said firefighters told him it was a miracle that he and his home survived a lightning strike.

Owen Steele was at home at 12:45 p.m. June 14 when his home took a direct hit.

“It cooked my gas line,” said Steele, who bought the home on Sarakinis Path in 2019.

The lightning strike left a hole in the roof of his garage about the size of a bowling ball. Steele’s 28-year-old son, a U.S. Marine who has served in hotspots around the globe and was staying with his father on the day of the strike, couldn’t believe the sound.

The Villages Public Safety Department arrived on the scene to secure the home and survey the damage.

“They said it was nothing short of a miracle the whole house didn’t blow,” said Steele, who has been a longtime renter in The Villages and whose parents moved here many years ago.

...

After the firefighters cleared the scene, Steele began an inventory of the damage and started to try to make sense of what had happened.

The electrical wiring and tankless water heater were among the long list of damages.

“The gas meter itself outside had to be removed and replaced that day. It was fried from the lightning traveling through it. Obviously, the heat alone melted the tracer wire on the pipe where it meets the ground,” Steele said.

Heat melted the tracer wire that connects to the gas line
Heat melted the tracer wire that connects to the gas line.

He obtained a report that showed there had been 22 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes within one mile of his front door. The most powerful of the strikes hit his home.

“There were seven simultaneous strikes at 12:44:55 pm totaling more than 300,000 amps peak current that possibly caused the damage,” said Frank Criste of LightningProtectionTheVillages.com, who assisted Steele in analyzing the data.

Up to 30 of Steele’s neighbors’ homes also sustained damage. Many have had to replace cable boxes, modems and garage door openers.

In the week since the lightning strike, Steele has vigorously absorbed everything he could learn about lightning. He said he would like to save his fellow residents a similar fate.

“The only thing I want to convey personally is that had I known the reasonably priced safety measures that I could’ve taken before this incident, I wouldn’t have hesitated,” Steele said.

He said he could have had a lightning protection system installed for about $1,800.

...

And recharged as well :1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

I don't think the odds are "in the millions". I would ballpark it at 1 in 20,000 each year. I would base this on the 3 or so lightning strikes on homes that I hear about in The Villages each year and the fact that there are about 65,000 homes in The Villages.

Surge
 

We called our power company and they came out and put in a whole house surge protector at the meter. It will cover all our appliances and electronics. $12 a month seems cheap to not experience the hassle of frying everything in your house.

Get a metal flag pole. Works just as good and is not attached to your house.

For 3 grand I’d say scam..

I wish I have had the money the lottery gives out for as many times as my house has been hit by lightning in Florida.

That is FALSE. My sister in law lives in the villages and had her rods hit twice and the only damage was once to the low voltage transformer to her landscaping lights and that was because it wasn’t grounded to the system.

That is FALSE. My sister in law lives in the villages and had her rods hit twice and the only damage was once to the low voltage transformer to her landscaping lights and that was because it wasn’t grounded to the system.

I do not know if this is a scam but I do believe they are not effective. In order to be effective the have to be tall enough to provide a cone of protection to your house. For example if you want a 60 degree cone of protection the lightning rod would have to be installed on the highest point of your home and be tall enough that if hit at the top would provide 60 degrees of protection for every thing under and within that cone of protection. One foot lightning rods do not provide any type of a cone of protection. If you can find access to the FAA document FAA-019B this will give you a better understanding of lightning protection. This document may have been updated since I retired 10 years ago, but it will provide you with a better understanding of how lightning strikes.

This is FALSE. Your neighbors house does NOT attract the lightening. The rods by physics produce a negative electric charge, similar to static electricity. If a lighten bolt come within the proximity of the charge it will attract to the rod. There is no way it will attract to your neighbors house.

Isn't your response somewhat of a contradiction? If they work, then how does everything in your house electronic become toast? I'm sure you understand it better than I, but just seems like a confusing response.

Get a few very tall palm trees as I've seen several being hit in my neighborhood and starting on fire. And by the way yes a few years ago I had a neighbor whose house was hit it went through the bathroom vent and did cause a lot of damage

If they were only cool looking as the ones Grandma had on her house.

I have them on mine. Just a one time insurance policy.

Research the info from more informed and credible sources then the “next door” experts.

Lightning Rods

FAQ - Lightning Protection Institute

Here's some sage advice for golfers:

"If you're ever caught in a thunderstorm, and worry about lightning, hold up a one iron. Not even God can hit a one iron."

---- Lee Trevino

Does this post seem like a contradiction to anyone?????

Lightning rod
 

Lightning rod, The question is if lightning rods attract lightning then why would you want to put them on your house. Would you walk around the golf course in a lightning storm with a steel shaft a golf club in the air. You’re asking lightning to hit the steel shaft and kill you. So if you have lightning rods on your house are you asking lightning to hit your house?

There's websites that explain how a lightening rod works, here's one Demonstration of How Lightning Rods Work (Van De Graaff) - YouTube

Needing some education. :blahblahblah: