Talk of The Villages Florida - Lightning Protection Systems

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Wondering ... if I have metal solar panels on my metal roof, and they are properly grounded, am I good ? Is this virtually as good as the LPS talked about in this thread earlier ?

Also have tall pine trees within 30 feet of house. They are known to be 'lightning rods' due to their root system. Does that offer some protection to the house ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by villagetinker (Post 2105438)

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.

Most of the transient energy is carried on the surface of the conductor so they use braided cables made up of many smaller wires to increase the surface area.

Quote:

Originally Posted by keepsake (Post 2105507)

Also have tall pine trees within 30 feet of house. They are known to be 'lightning rods' due to their root system. Does that offer some protection to the house ?

No, they are poor conductors, lightning may jump from them to your house.

Quote:

Originally Posted by keepsake (Post 2105505)

Wondering ... if I have metal solar panels on my metal roof, and they are properly grounded, am I good ? Is this virtually as good as the LPS talked about in this thread earlier ?

Sorry, no for many reasons.

https://inspectapedia.com/lightning/...llation-UL.pdf

Quote:

Originally Posted by villagetinker (Post 2105495)

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.

You need all three for complete coverage.

Without a LPS, Wiring and metallic gas lines are susceptible to a strike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by villagetinker (Post 2105495)

Thank you once again for sharing your expertise

Quote:

Originally Posted by villagetinker (Post 2105495)

That's because they safety dissipate the energy.

Instrumented commercial high high risk sites record multiple strikes with no damage.

Check out NASA for extream examples.

We had LPS installed in early 2012. We have not had a leak and have had the system inspected twice over the last 10 years (about every 5 yrs). Both times we were told our house had been hit by lightning because of the damage to one of the rods. We had no clue this happened. Last summer the house across the street from us was struck & caused a fire, but was quickly brought under control by the VPSD. Still the damage was in the 10's of thousands of dollars. Since that time, at least 5 other neighbors had LPS installed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Papa_lecki (Post 2105439)

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?

I am not sure about these lightning protection systems. I worked on lightning protection systems for antenna an radar systems. The specification at first was to provide a 45 degree cone of protection to the system and later updated to a 60 degree cone of protection. The lightning rod has to be tall enough so that from the tip of the rod going out 45 degrees everything under that umbrella will be protected. They then increased it to 60 degrees. The FAA finally came out with a spec known as FAA-019B then C using multiple rods at various degrees almost looking like a porcupine. I don’t know how many times it has been updated since I retired. I just do not see how a one foot rod can provide any amount of significant protection but I could be wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by villagetinker (Post 2105495)

I have surge protectors, too. I’ve read that driving a few long rods into the sandy soil here is insufficient for grounding lightning rods if there is a direct hit. Supposedly, the system needs to be attached to a copper cable six feet deep that runs all the way around the house. People with rods may have a false peace of mind. I’ve also read that houses with lightning rods are more likely to be hit because the rods draw the lightning. I don’t know if these things are true. I wonder if steel roofs are more likely to be hit. I haven’t heard that they are, and that seems odd.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jrref (Post 2105345)

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.

Very informative and well done by JRREF who initiated this thread. Here are some supplemental points to clarify many of the issues raised by the posts that followed.1. Leaks from LPS are rare. Every 5 years you should have your installer check the system. Contact installer immediately if you add on, re-roof, add solar panels, any major excavation around the driven ground rods, or believe that you may have taken a lightning strike.2. Cost depends on roof area to be protected including pool cages. Patio villas $1,000 to premiers $3500+3. Cable used is has 28 to 32 strands and is specially designed and listed by UL for LPS applications. A lightning discharge to a home with a LPS lasts only a millisecond as the charge is safely shunted to ground.4. Each air terminal (lighting rod) has a 45 degree zone of protection from the tip all the way to the ground. The national standard on lightning (NFPA-780) requires the zones to overlap and that dictates the spacing between air terminals on the roof.5. Over the years there has been numerous studies and tests on LPS including at the University of Florida. Further, 15 Villagers with a LPS, have reported lighting strikes without any physical damage to the structure.6. Triangle and A-1 have been mentioned. They are firms listed by UL and employ Master Installers who meet the Lightning Protection Institute criteria. Door-to-door installers will not have these credentials and may not follow the aforementioned NFPA-780.If you still have questions about lighting the Science & Technology Group is sponsoring a free, non-commercial Power Point presentation on lightning at 1 PM today at Bridgeport Rec Center. You only need a Villages ID to attend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by villagetinker (Post 2105495)

Actually there has been at least one home with a LPS in the Villages that was struck by lightning without damage. If you contact the Villages Weather Club ask for Len Hathaway. He has all the data for the Villages. He will be doing another lightning talk today at 1:00PM at the Bridgeport Rec Center. 1670 Lake Miona drive.

If you attend you will get all the facts on the topic then you can make your own decision whether you get a system or not. If you go on Youtube and search for LPS you will see lots of hard facts on the topic and that they do indeed work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MandoMan (Post 2105715)

On the one question highlighted above, it is my understanding based on my research at the time we had a LPS installed that the system does not attract OR repel lightning.

We had our system installed primarily because our home has natural gas. This is not distributed throughout the house with, say, the black pipe that we knew up north but rather by a material far more flimsy (for lack of a better word but meaning essentially the same. And of course gas is distributed through the attic and then dropped down the walls to range, water heater, furnace, and clothes dryer. Without LPS I'd have little to no confidence in the gas piping permitted here in TV.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quixote (Post 2105729)

Just to add, LPS systems do not attract or repel lightning. All they do is provide a safe path to ground for the discharge if you home gets hit vs the lightning running around your house destroying everthing when trying to discharge to ground.

Also as far as lightning rods are concerned, Triangle and A1 will do a grounding test to measure the ground of the lightning rods they install. Make sure you ask for the report. Also the system is bonded to the utility ground And the ground rod that was installed when your house was built. So in my case i'm grounded to 5 ground rods plus the utility ground.