Lightning Protection Systems
 

There have been several threads on this topic in the past but given the recent house destroyed by lightning over in Amelia i thought we should discuss this again.

I moved here to the Villages a year ago and immediately had the SECO surge protector installed at my meter. I also have surge protectors and UPS systems procecting my computers and other electronic equipment. All these protectors do is shunt electrical surges coming through the electrical feed to your home. These surges can come directly from the power source but they usually can happen when lightning strikes close by and jumps to your electrical. Never buy the SECO surge protector for the insurance since they will only pay if the damaging surge came through the electrical and through their surge protector and the protector failed. All this surge protector does is "lessen" the magnititude of the surge so you point surge protectors at your computers and other electrical equipment can stop the surge.

Other more common sources are through your cable, phone, irregation and other systems. The most common is through the cable line. There is a surge protector that can be installed at your panel in the garage just for the cable but i don't think may have this.

I then decided to have a Lightning Protection System (LPS) installed. Why? Because although there are very few homes destroyed by lightning here in the Villages you never know when you could hit the lottery and be hit.

When lightning hits your house or hits close and jumps to your house it will enter the attic and run around like a ricocheting bullet trying to find ground. It could hit your gas line then jump to an electrical line then even through people in the house causing death. All the LPS system does is provide a safe path to ground outside your home avoiding the destruction. The fact that most people miss is although you home is insured, lightning can enter the living space and kill you. Rare but it does happen. So just saying you have home insurance is not the ansewer.

If you do decide to get an LPS, Triangle and A1 are local UL certified installers. Both are excellent and their prices are close enough.

All this said, after having a system installed recently you need to be aware of the following:
1) Although these companies try to hide the wiring as much as possible on the roof, you will be able to see the wires when you look for them.
2) A lot of screw holes will be needed to fasten the equipment to the roof. These companies use special screws but ask for sealant to be applied to lessen the risk of a leak down the road.
3) If you are just building, you can have all the wires installed in the attic so you don't see any wires but this is considerably more expensive and i'm not convinced i would want the lightning discharge system inside my home, just in case.
4) Lighter and red/orange/brown colored roofs will hide the wires better than other colored roofs. For very light roofs you can install aluminum wire instead of copper and it's hard to see. (copper is better btw.)
5) Eventually when you need a new roof, you need to call the LPS installer to uninstall the roofing equipment, have the new roof installed then have the LPS installer re-install the system on the roof. It's not crazy expensive since the whole system doesn't need to be removed and if you had copper installed, they will re-use it.

For those who had LPS systems installed did anyone ever have a leak from the screw holes in the roof? Since the loading from the LPS system is small, not like a dish antenna or solar panels my guess is the screws rarely leak.

Hope this all helps.

The original owner of our home installed a system by A-1 in 2020. We just re-roofed. Never a leaking problem. As part of the reroofing process we had A-1 remove the system, store it and reinstall it; all at a very reasonable cost. It appears to me that all attachment devices had/have a liberal application of a sealant material. The roofers replaced only a 3'x 4' area of damaged sheathing on our 2400 sq ft home and that was nowhere near any lightning rod system penetration.

What’s a ballpark figure for one of these systems?

Seems like you would need some pretty heavy gauge wire to bypass 30,000 amps from a lightning strike to ground.

Yes, but the lightning surge is for a very short period of time, from the ground the wire appears to be about 3/8 diameter, but I am sure an owner or installer will give the exact size.

What if your immediate neighbor has the system? Doesn’t lightning hit the highest point or is the goal of the system to have the ground connected to your house?

They used 2 gauge stranded copper wire. I believe it's 1/2 inch thick.
As far as the voltage and amperage from the strike, you are correct. First it's very short and Triangle installed 4 ground wires one at each corner of the house. Three are required by code. The whole grounding system is all connected so the charge would run down all 4 ground wires. In addition, the system is then bonded to the utility ground where there is an additional 5th ground rod that came with the house.

Anywhere from $1,500- $2,200 from what i understand. It depends on the design of you home and if you have gas.

Thanks for the reply. I went on the edge of the roof to take a look close up and the guys from Triangle LPS also put a liberal amount of Chemlink M1 sealant on the clamps, etc.., so i'm convinced it should be water tight until the roof is changed in about 10 years. I know there are special sealants specifically for roofing and M1 is one of them.

Normally lightning stikes the highest point but not always. Depends on the storm clouds and the charges that are built up. If your neighbor has a LPS system it doesn't protect your house unfortunately.

The goal is to provide a safe path to ground if lightning hits your house vs it going into the attic, ricocheting like a bullet around your house and maybe killing an occupant.

To make matters worse, lightning can go into your attic, jump to an electrical wire, burn it up then travel down that wire to another circuit, damage that one, etc, until it finds a path to ground. In a case like this you would potentially need to rip your walls open to find the damaged electrical wiring and re-wire. At the end of the day for $2K to install an LPS it's not worth gambling. If you do get hit you are in for a lot of work whether insurance pays. Look at it as one time insurance.

Seems like this will increase the protection you have from lightning but does it give you 100% protect?

We have a whole house Seco surge protector and individual surge protectors on computers and other expensive devices and wondering if we should take it a step further.

According to independent research done, these systems are about 98% effective and they do work. Nothing is 100%.

My suggestion is give Bobby at Triangle a call and he can give you a quote and answer any questions since he's one of the experts. 352-483-7020

I got mine installed on Friday not even knowing the recent strike in Amelia. Some of my neighbors here on Deskin Ln also have systems.

I worked in the electric utility field, there is a 'shield' effect from the highest point, think of a cone about 30 degrees wide from the highest point to the ground. The area under this cone tends to be shielded from a direct strike. This is why you see ONE overhead ground wire on many electric utility high voltage lines, this wire protects the wires below. A neighbor's house would NOT be high enough to protect your house, however, the very pointed rods may attract the lightning to that location. We actually used devices that resembled large fuzzy balls at some locations to dissipate the charge and avoid a direct strike, NO idea if these actually worked.

Do you have or are you considering a device like this?

I am not considering a lightning protection system, I do however have a whole house surge protector as well as individual surge protectors and UPS protection on various pieces of equipment. I have never seen a report of a LPS protected house being hit by lightning, so I have never seen how effective they are.