Within 1 mile of my house, 2 of my friends have had their houses burn to the ground from lightening strikes. Both docs BTW. I'm thinking of a lightening-rod(s) installation. Any one with good advice on this?
Never built one in the USA, but on the plant in China, we were required to build one. The best ones that I've seen actually run a 1" metal band all the way around the perimeter of the building and have several grounds at various points. The strip is mounted about 4" above the roof. Check and see if NFPA has any recommendations or codes around what is required in the states.
I saw a program once on why an African village meeting hut kept getting nailed by lighting time after time. Some western geologists and other scientists did some studies and found that the hut had continuously burned fires there. After all these years it produced enough carbon from the ashes and carbon is an excellent conductor of electricity that lightening was attracted to the area. Food for thought.
We have several buildings on our farm property. All have several lightening rods with 1" cables that attach to a steel rod that is buried in the ground. Would not be without them. Cheap insurance. Lost one horse and one cow, a number of years ago, with one lightening strike -- they were standing together underneat a tree. Both killed instantly.
At the hospital most buildings (including mine) are outfitted w/ lightening rods -1 ft spikes encircling the roofs, at about 12 ft intervals, wired to a heavy-duty ground cable. Seems to do the trick as no lightening problems have occurred in 10 yrs, other than transformers being knocked out . Backup generators take over of course, & is reported to all employees via hospital-wide email. You wouldnt even notice these lightening rods. Good idea, Uro if you will sleep better. My house was struck before I moved in, blowing up the drywall & slab in the master bedroom. Also have had 2 pine trees w/in 15 ft of my house struck. Next-door neighbor had all the electrical outlets on the back of the house fried. So I do think about it in summer. BTW, one of my RX-7s was struck while I was driving work- but that is another story.
