Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got whacked
last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't want to go
through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish & came into the house
& got into the mains panel. From there it went to every circuit in the
house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and they both tripped and nothing
on those circuits was damaged. That's why I asked about something that could
cover the entire house.

Thanks

Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got whacked
last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't want to go
through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish & came into the house
& got into the mains panel. From there it went to every circuit in the
house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and they both tripped and nothing
on those circuits was damaged. That's why I asked about something that could
cover the entire house.

Thanks


do you have a unified ground?
everything should be grounded at the same place. including the satellite
dish.

On Wed, 06 Jul 2005 08:57:03 -0400, joe wrote:
do you have a unified ground?
everything should be grounded at the same place. including the satellite
dish.

Several years ago I had my main panel upgraded to 200A, covered by
circuit breakers (original system was fuzes). Installer said the
above issue was the most important. After he drove in the rod and
connected the power system ground to it, he told me to get hold of the
phone company and the cable guys and insist that they relocate their
grounds to that ground.
Once done, previous problems I had had with lightning strikes taking
out TVs, etc., went away and I have not had that kind of a problem
since.
YMMV, I guess

Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got whacked
last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't want to go
through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish & came into the house
& got into the mains panel. From there it went to every circuit in the
house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and they both tripped and nothing
on those circuits was damaged. That's why I asked about something that could
cover the entire house.

Thanks



Your house should be protected from lightning strikes and this has
nothing to do with surges. Is your satellite grounded? I don't know
the codes but I am almost positive it should be. Everything outside of
my house is grounded, and even on my last house which was build in
1920s. That way it would have never entered your house. There is NO
protection from a direct lightning strike. That the GFCIs tripped was
probably from noise due to the hit, but not likely a real hit. In fact
you probably got a sympathetic stroke anyway, a direct hit would have
blown some 8hit up. Including yourself.

How do you know where the stroke came in and how it travelled?
Lightning just wants to get to earth, surprising it would get to the
main box, then go back into the house again.


Anyway, that dish should probably have a ground line on it. Tying to
ground outside of the house.


--
Respectfully,


CL Gilbert

A whole house surge protector is an excellent idea, but it sounds like
it wouldn't have helped in this case. The surge protector will protect
against most lightening induced surges on the incoming AC, but if it
enters the house elsewhere, it won't stop it. Like others have
suggested, I'd check the grounding/installation of the dish.

Three electric wires enter your house. One connects to
earth ground. How are the other two wires earthed? Not
earthed if a 'whole house' protector is not properly
installed. Two of the three AC electric wires (not earthed by
a 'whole house' protector) carry destructive surges (such as
lightning) into a building; finding earth ground,
destructively, via household appliances. In most homes, only
one of three AC electric wires is earthed. In some homes,
even that ground is missing or compromised.

It has been routine for generations to earth direct
lightning strikes without damage. However homes were not
designed to protect transistors. Unfortunately we still build
new homes without superior and inexpensive earthing. So we do
the best we can as an after thought. Still that after thought
is sufficient to earth direct strikes without damage. But
that means every wire - all three electric - both telephone
wires, etc - make a short connection to the same earth ground
either by direct connection or via a surge protector.

"CL (dnoyeB) Gilbert" wrote:
Your house should be protected from lightning strikes and this has
nothing to do with surges. Is your satellite grounded? I don't know
the codes but I am almost positive it should be. Everything outside of
my house is grounded, and even on my last house which was build in
1920s. That way it would have never entered your house. There is NO
protection from a direct lightning strike. That the GFCIs tripped was
probably from noise due to the hit, but not likely a real hit. In fact
you probably got a sympathetic stroke anyway, a direct hit would have
blown some 8hit up. Including yourself.

How do you know where the stroke came in and how it travelled?
Lightning just wants to get to earth, surprising it would get to the
main box, then go back into the house again.

Anyway, that dish should probably have a ground line on it. Tying to
ground outside of the house.

w_tom wrote:
Three electric wires enter your house. One connects to
earth ground. How are the other two wires earthed? Not
earthed if a 'whole house' protector is not properly
installed. Two of the three AC electric wires (not earthed by
a 'whole house' protector) carry destructive surges (such as
lightning) into a building; finding earth ground,
destructively, via household appliances. In most homes, only
one of three AC electric wires is earthed. In some homes,
even that ground is missing or compromised.


Well the electrical code should be such that these 3 wires are always
present together. A strike is going to prefer the 'earthed' wire over
the ones not earthed. Even if you install a surge device, the 'earthed'
wire is still going to be the easier path to ground.

Its a surge protector, not a lightning protector. It will protect you
to some degree from a borked transformer or some odd occurance likely
generated local to your neighborhood (Frankenstein). It will absolutely
not offer any protection from lightning strikes, direct or indirect.


It has been routine for generations to earth direct
lightning strikes without damage. However homes were not
designed to protect transistors. Unfortunately we still build
new homes without superior and inexpensive earthing. So we do
the best we can as an after thought. Still that after thought
is sufficient to earth direct strikes without damage. But
that means every wire - all three electric - both telephone
wires, etc - make a short connection to the same earth ground
either by direct connection or via a surge protector.

"CL (dnoyeB) Gilbert" wrote:



Lightning will utterly obliterate a surge protector.


--
Respectfully,


CL Gilbert

Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got
whacked last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't
want to go through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish &
came into the house & got into the mains panel. From there it went to
every circuit in the house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and
they both tripped and nothing on those circuits was damaged. That's
why I asked about something that could cover the entire house.

Thanks

Protection from lightning comes in at least two flavors. One is the
physical damage including fire from a direct strike. For that see your
local lightning rod company. That is not a do it yourself job.

As for wiring, I suggest that you start by replacing the GFI, they may
have given their all in the effort. As Joe noted, make sure your home
grounds are are properly designed installed and have not been damaged.
Note: a lightning strike can damage wiring so that it could cause a fire or
other problems later. I would contact my insurance company and they may
suggest and supply or pay for a professional inspection and repair.

I would suggest adding whole house surge protection. I have it on my
home. If you feel comfortable with replacing or adding a circuit breaker,
you may be ready to DIY. However if opening up the circuit breaker box
makes you a little uneasy and you don't know what you are looking at in
there, I suggest having them installed professionally.

As for personal experience; I had a lightning strike about 18" away from
my A/C compressor unit. It blew out part of the controller circuit board,
but did no damage in the house. I was able to re-wire the board eliminating
the damaged section as that function was duplicated by my thermostat.

Good Luck

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got whacked
last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't want to go
through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish & came into the house
& got into the mains panel. From there it went to every circuit in the
house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and they both tripped and nothing
on those circuits was damaged. That's why I asked about something that could
cover the entire house.

Thanks


Hi,
Poor grounding for the whole house including the dish? If you get a
direct hit like that nothing much can help it.
Tony

"Patch" wrote in message
news:1120654233.30c80013e498bf82b6b21f32db6489d2@t eranews...

Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes?

Lightning rods. /www.howstuffworks.com/lightning9.htm

RM ~

Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got
whacked last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't
want to go through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish &
came into the house & got into the mains panel. From there it went to
every circuit in the house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and
they both tripped and nothing on those circuits was damaged. That's
why I asked about something that could cover the entire house.

Thanks

Lots of replies imply that grounding will handle a lightning strike,
especially mentioned is grounding the satellite dish.

You need to understand that grounding a dish, or almost anything else, does
nothing to mitigate a lightning strike. If you're struck, you're toast. No
piddly #12 wire is going to handle 50,000 amps at (up to) millions of volts.

What these ground rods do - also lightning rods - is act as a preventative
to lightning by discharging the positive earth charges into the surrounding
atmosphere - an invisible shield around the device - satellite dish or
lightning rod. This shield, however, can be penetrated by a sufficiently
large lighting bolt.

So, then, get a lighting rod up (or more than one) and individually protect
each critical device plugged into the mains.

Good luck.

PS
If you live in a mobile home, nothing helps. Mobile homes attract tornados,
lighting, and stray dogs.

The telco has overhead wires everywhere in town connected to
a $multi-million switching computer. So the telco must be
down for about 1 week every year replacing their computer?
Not likely. Direct strikes are easily earthed without damage.

If that 12 AWG (typically used for 20 amp service) was
carrying 50,000 amps continuous, then that wire would be
vaporized. Well that wire can carry up to 300 amps
continuous. Note the word 'continuous'. That wire can carry
hundreds of thousands of amps IF the current is very short.
Notice how current capacity changes when we change the
period. What is the typical lightning strike? Most are less
than 20,000 amps. And these transients are so short
(microseconds) as to not damage that 12 AWG wire.

How many amps can a 24 AWG wire carry? Well that MOV with
24 AWG wire leads is rated to carry something on the order of
5,000 amps. Furthermore, the wire is not vaporized by those
5,000 amps. The attached MOV (not its wire leads) fail if
current significantly exceed 5,000 amps. 5,000+ amps on a 24
AWG wire? Not a problem because we add an additional fact -
time of the 5,000+ amps. Time is so short that those leads
easily handle a quick 5000+ amps.

Also incorrect (a product of the urban myth machine) is that
lightning rods discharge the air. Somehow a lightning rod
will discharge "the positive earth charges into the
surrounding atmosphere"? One small problem. Charges that
create lightning are located miles away in the cloud and often
miles away elsewhere on the earth. Lightning is electricity -
not electrostatic charges. Lightning connects charges in that
cloud to other, distant, and earth borne charges. Tell us
that a lightning rod will somehow discharge a cloud that is
miles away? This is the myth promoted by ESE industry.

Early Streamer Emission industry claim their devices
discharge the atmosphere. But ESE manufacturers never provide
science reason nor experimental evidence for their myths.
Myths? Without both theory and experimental evidence, then a
fact does not exist. The ESE industry provides neither.

The ESE industry tried to create NFPA 781 standard. When
rejected, they attempted to get the well respected NFPA 780
standard eliminated. The ESE industry were even accused of
blackmail - sue the non-profit NFPA into bankruptcy - to get
their scam product approved.

How foolish is this idea that lightning rods discharge the
atmosphere?
http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/700Minutes.pdf
(see PDF page 18+) 00-60 D#00-22 starting with mention of
Heary Brothers Lightning Protection Company, Inc., Bryan
Panel Report follows:
The proponents of that technology, primarily those associated
with the Heary Brothers Lightning Protection Company, Inc., ...
have extolled the technology and, in particular, have claimed
that ESE terminals offer a vastly increased zone of protection
over that of traditional lightning rods. Those claims have been
disputed and, most recently, a special panel created to
consider information and to issue a report concerning ESE
lightning protection technology to the Standards Council (Bryan
Panel Report), firmly rebutted the claims of ESE proponents that
the technology had been adequately validated, concluding, among
other things, as follows:
The ESE lightning protection technology as currently developed
in the installation of complete systems does not appear to be
scientifically and technically sound in relation to the claimed
areas of protection or the essentials of the grounding system

There is a fundamental problem with HeyBub's post. It is
based on speculation; not based on science concepts,
experimental evidence, or even a responsible citation. You
have a choice. Either believe the NFPA (authors of the
National Electrical Code) or believe HeyBub.

HeyBub wrote:
Lots of replies imply that grounding will handle a lightning strike,
especially mentioned is grounding the satellite dish.

You need to understand that grounding a dish, or almost anything
else, does nothing to mitigate a lightning strike. If you're
struck, you're toast. No piddly #12 wire is going to handle 50,000
amps at (up to) millions of volts.

What these ground rods do - also lightning rods - is act as a
preventative to lightning by discharging the positive earth
charges into the surrounding atmosphere - an invisible shield
around the device - satellite dish or lightning rod. This
shield, however, can be penetrated by a sufficiently
large lighting bolt.
...

w_tom wrote:

The telco has overhead wires everywhere in town connected to
a $multi-million switching computer. So the telco must be
down for about 1 week every year replacing their computer?
Not likely. Direct strikes are easily earthed without damage.

I'm going to install an outdoor TV antenna, but am confused about how
to ground it. Its mast will be 12' above the ground and about 25' over
from the house's breaker box ground rod.

Should I use stranded wire instead of solid?

Should I install a ground rod into the dirt directly below the mast, or
can I simply run a #4 ground wire from the mast to the breaker box
ground rod?

Is there ever any harm in installing a second ground rod, provided it's
bonded to the main one?

Volts500 provided a complete description of grounding a
house. I believe this in the newsgroup alt.home.repair
entitled "Grounding Rod Info" on 12 July 2003 also included
how to earth the TV antenna per code requirements at:
http://tinyurl.com/hkjq

Meanwhile, a larger number of ground rods tied together will
usually improve the building earthing system. The code
provides a rather subjective number that may require a second
ground rod. Many electricians don't even bother to measure.
Since the second earthing rod will improve conductivity, they
just install the second rod automatically.

larry moe 'n curly wrote:
I'm going to install an outdoor TV antenna, but am confused about how
to ground it. Its mast will be 12' above the ground and about 25' over
from the house's breaker box ground rod.

Should I use stranded wire instead of solid?

Should I install a ground rod into the dirt directly below the mast, or
can I simply run a #4 ground wire from the mast to the breaker box
ground rod?

Is there ever any harm in installing a second ground rod, provided it's
bonded to the main one?

larry moe 'n curly wrote:

w_tom wrote:

The telco has overhead wires everywhere in town connected to
a $multi-million switching computer. So the telco must be
down for about 1 week every year replacing their computer?
Not likely. Direct strikes are easily earthed without damage.

I'm going to install an outdoor TV antenna, but am confused about how
to ground it. Its mast will be 12' above the ground and about 25' over
from the house's breaker box ground rod.

Should I use stranded wire instead of solid?

Should I install a ground rod into the dirt directly below the mast, or
can I simply run a #4 ground wire from the mast to the breaker box
ground rod?

Is there ever any harm in installing a second ground rod, provided it's
bonded to the main one?

Hmmm,
Direct strike? Have you an experience? I was an EIC at a BIG computer
systems installation located in a basement of a 7 story building at a
university campus. One day we took a direct hit. It knocked off all the
substation main breakers(one we have to engage winding up big springs).
Garbled data on the mass storage subsystem comprising of ~150 or so hard
drives. Now what did you say?

Tony Hwang wrote:

Hmmm,
Direct strike? Have you an experience? I was an EIC at a BIG computer
systems installation located in a basement of a 7 story building at a
university campus. One day we took a direct hit. It knocked off all the
substation main breakers(one we have to engage winding up big springs).
Garbled data on the mass storage subsystem comprising of ~150 or so hard
drives. Now what did you say?

You are replying to a July 2005 thread???

Tony Hwang wrote:
larry moe 'n curly wrote:

w_tom wrote:

The telco has overhead wires everywhere in town connected to
a $multi-million switching computer. So the telco must be
down for about 1 week every year replacing their computer?
Not likely. Direct strikes are easily earthed without damage.


Hmmm,
Direct strike? Have you an experience? I was an EIC at a BIG computer
systems installation located in a basement of a 7 story building at a
university campus. One day we took a direct hit. It knocked off all the
substation main breakers(one we have to engage winding up big springs).
Garbled data on the mass storage subsystem comprising of ~150 or so hard
drives. Now what did you say?

He said direct strikes are easily earthed without damage.

Lightning hit my one-story house. It blew masonry a hundred feet,
knocked a hole in the roof, and knocked off siding. It zapped a lot of
electronic stuff, including two stereo receivers ten feet from me.
Neither was connected to an antenna. One was plugged in but not on.
The other wasn't even plugged in.

I was online at the time. My monitor sat blank with blotches of
various colors. Cycling it off and on degaussed it. My computer
restarted and I found no damage, not even disk corruption. My cordless
phone was fine, too.

Across the street, the strike on my house wiped out everything my
neighbor had connected to his phone line: computer, satellite receiver,
and cordless phone set. For years, he had ignored my advice for simple,
cheap grounding to protect him from lightning damage.

Many years ago there was a lightning rod salesman who sold
mainly to rural customers. He stopped at a farm and was
greeted by a woman who said she didn't want a lightning rod,
didn't need a lightning rod, and wasn't the least bit
worried about lightning. But, she was afraid of thunder.

At that, the salesman said "You're in luck. I just happen to
have a thunder rod in my car!"

He then went to the trunk of his car and pulled out a
charred, blackened lightning rod he'd replaced for a
customer after lightning struck it.

"Here you are, ma'am, the finest thunder rod available
anywhere. I can have it installed for you today!"

The woman bought it, and was so relieved she'd found a
thunder rod that she began telling her friends about it, and
how she wasn't afraid of thunder any more. They, feeling
sorry for her, told the county Sheriff, who quickly tracked
down the salesman, forced him to take the thunder rod down,
and refund the woman's money.

But from that day forward, the woman was once again a
nervous wreck every time there was a storm, and cursed out
her friends for helping her.

Polyphaser is an industry benchmark. Their application
notes are considered legendary among industry professionals.
Polyphaser also discusses "discharging the positive earth
charges into the surrounding atmosphere":
http://www.polyphaser.com/ppc_TD1020.aspx

HeyBub wrote:
...
What these ground rods do - also lightning rods - is act as a
preventative to lightning by discharging the positive earth
charges into the surrounding atmosphere - an invisible shield
around the device - satellite dish or lightning rod. This
shield, however, can be penetrated by a sufficiently large
lighting bolt.

Lots of replies imply that grounding will handle a lightning strike,
especially mentioned is grounding the satellite dish.

You need to understand that grounding a dish, or almost anything else,
does nothing to mitigate a lightning strike. If you're struck, you're
toast. No piddly #12 wire is going to handle 50,000 amps at (up to)
millions of volts.

What these ground rods do - also lightning rods - is act as a preventative
to lightning by discharging the positive earth charges into the
surrounding atmosphere - an invisible shield around the device - satellite
dish or lightning rod. This shield, however, can be penetrated by a
sufficiently large lighting bolt.

So, then, get a lighting rod up (or more than one) and individually
protect each critical device plugged into the mains.

Good luck.

PS
If you live in a mobile home, nothing helps. Mobile homes attract
tornados, lighting, and stray dogs.
I'm leaning towards lightning rods. Yesterday I found a 3 ft long, 3 in
wide piece of wood in my yard while mowing. It was the same color as my
house. I started looking to see where it came from and saw damage at the
very top of the roof. A one foot area had missing shingles & wood along the
eave was splintered as though a pipe bomb had gone off. Next question,
where do you buy lightning rods?

Thanks

Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got whacked
last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't want to go
through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish & came into the house
& got into the mains panel. From there it went to every circuit in the
house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and they both tripped and nothing
on those circuits was damaged. That's why I asked about something that could
cover the entire house.

Thanks


Hmmm,
To late to talk about it but
did you install the dish properly to begin with?

Tony Hwang wrote:
Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got
whacked last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't
want to go through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish &
came into the house & got into the mains panel. From there it went to
every circuit in the house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and
they both tripped and nothing on those circuits was damaged. That's
why I asked about something that could cover the entire house.

Thanks

Hmmm,
To late to talk about it but
did you install the dish properly to begin with?

Yea, it is too late to talk about it.
A second response to a July 2005 thread???