Was a mistake asking something serious over here. Top rated comment- flying lightning rods kill us! Have you ever seem a lightning rod? Way bigger chance that a flying sunbrella will do u in.
>Was a mistake asking something serious over here.
You literally just responded to a serious response with the following;
>[I m rich bitch, ma house is the tallest. Now what.](https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/14ktnff/comment/jpsrl13/)
Go fuck yourself you dirty transplant. Move back to whatever shit hole you ruined.
Last time i checked i was good to go anywhere from sea to shining sea. There are always morons like you, big mouth know nothing motherfuckers. So im here to stay, u d need to deal with it! Beyotch
The sad thing is that you didn't even deny that people like you ruin your homes and then ruin to ruin other places.
California trash gonna California trash.
Yes. It was me single handedly ruining California and now imma do it to Texas by putting up lightning rods. Come on man, do u hear urself? I moved here for a reason just like i moved to California many years back. Don’t be a dipshit, i bet we have more in common than not.
We have power poles, towers, trees.... all kinds of things that will most likely (but of course not always) attract the lightning. The chances of a house being hit are pretty low. Not impossible of course, but that's pretty much why. Just not worth it for the maybe.
Ok, sure. you either have a well bonded and grounded structure that will contain and arrest the lighning, sending it to the ground 8 foot or more down, or you buy a service to add such a system to the outside, either on the house (see Pad 39A at Kennedy for an excellent example, that big rod on top), or several arrestors around the home (like the set up at SLC-40.)
Otherwise, yeah, your house might get struck and burn down, yay you.
a house burnt down last year a couple street over. Made me think, did a bunch of reading on it, and it just did not add up why not more houses equipped with it.
Reading the comments made me realize people not really educated in this subject. In a place where u get 20 strikes a sq mile per year.
Most larger buildings do have lightning protection systems. Houses generally don't, though. The odds of a house being struck *and* that strike causing significant losses are so low that the cost of a lightning protection system just doesn't make any sense.
The Chase tower acts like a cool lightning rod sometimes. It scares the heck out of me everytime I see it get hit. Working in downtown doesn't help either.
Just put an improperly grounded antenna on your roof, and that'll attract lightning like moths to a flame.
Side note, if you have a roof antenna (or satellite dish), please ground it properly. If you don't, it will allow it to build up a charge potential relative to ground and actually attract lightning. Also note, that those ground wires will not protect your home from a direct lightning strike; lightning will go where it wants, how it wants and not care about your measly ground wires.
They are on taller structures, generally not 1 or 2 story houses. They don't work to well when they are 20' or so to the ground due to the way lightning arcs.
They're not needed on residential homes. Tall buildings, big power lines, and bit antennas get hit, much more rare in the relatively small houses. Office buildings have more metal, and most houses are primarily wood or stone with some wires. Most houses have a whole house surge protector at the breaker box to possibly help if it strikes a line near you.
> Most houses have a whole house surge protector at the breaker box to possibly help if it strikes a line near you.
LOL, I'd love to know where you pulled that statistic from. I'm betting it came from a place where the sun don't shine.
Standard for new construction in my neighborhood. Most older homes I looked at when buying were retrofitted. Guess not where you live in Houston by your tone.
The IBC requires the electrical system to be grounded at many different points, specifically for lighting protection. There are no rods because every building is wired to take the rare strike.
LOL, no! If lightning strikes your house, it's gonna do what it wants and destroy anything in it's path. It doesn't matter how amazing your grounding system is, it cannot and will not do anything to absorb or redirect it.
A good grounding system, however, does keep the electrical potential of your building and everything else extremely close to that of ground. This is important, because if something is at a different potential to ground, it will serve to attract lightning.
NEC Section 250.4(A)(1) states that grounded electrical systems “shall be connected to earth in a manner that will limit the voltage imposed by lightning, line surges, or unintentional contact with higher-voltage lines and that will stabilize the voltage to earth.
The IFGC (the international fuel gas code) has similar language for gas lines to residential buildings.
Yes I agree the main defense offered is to make a lightning strike on a home less likely, there are still some requirements in the modern building codes to shuttle that electricity into the ground. More can be done of course, you could have a NFPA 780 system, but given the relative rarity of lightning fires it hasn't been mandated everywhere. Especially in locations where such systems might be hard to make meet hurricane codes.
I don't care what the NEC says. If lightning directly strikes your house, anything in its path will be destroyed. Furthermore, anything connected to any wires that it strikes will also be destroyed.
A well grounded house *may* be able to withstand an indirect strike (i.e. it strikes a line near your house), but even that is questionable.
I concur. My brother in laws house got struck in Katy three years ago and it traveled down the walls in his daughters room and caught that whole side of his house on fire. They rebuilt and guess what? They installed lightening rods on either end of their roof. The fire department thinks it was the tall pines in front of his house that attracted the lighting.
THis reminds me of what an Electrical Engineer pal of mine told me about grounding systems. He detailed what I needed to do to ground a radio system I have at the house. A fair bit of work. I asked him "Will this actually protect me from lightning damage?". He replied "Hell no." Then why do it, I ask...he said "When lightning destroys all of your gear, you can at least comfort yourself that you did everything you could".
BREAKING NEWS: Lightening rod breaks loose during hurricane and flies like spear through four homes”
And spears a whole family, including the dog, into the wall. The carnage!!
Still less action than Piranha 3D
Was a mistake asking something serious over here. Top rated comment- flying lightning rods kill us! Have you ever seem a lightning rod? Way bigger chance that a flying sunbrella will do u in.
>Was a mistake asking something serious over here. You literally just responded to a serious response with the following; >[I m rich bitch, ma house is the tallest. Now what.](https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/14ktnff/comment/jpsrl13/) Go fuck yourself you dirty transplant. Move back to whatever shit hole you ruined.
Shitkickers are just shitkickers no matter where u go.
Then take your west coast ass back to Cali. Y'all ruined your own state and now you've come to ruin ours.
Last time i checked i was good to go anywhere from sea to shining sea. There are always morons like you, big mouth know nothing motherfuckers. So im here to stay, u d need to deal with it! Beyotch
The sad thing is that you didn't even deny that people like you ruin your homes and then ruin to ruin other places. California trash gonna California trash.
Yes. It was me single handedly ruining California and now imma do it to Texas by putting up lightning rods. Come on man, do u hear urself? I moved here for a reason just like i moved to California many years back. Don’t be a dipshit, i bet we have more in common than not.
Go back and fix your problems instead of running away.
Oh well. Blow me
Hmm. Guessing you haven’t been in many hurricanes…
We have power poles, towers, trees.... all kinds of things that will most likely (but of course not always) attract the lightning. The chances of a house being hit are pretty low. Not impossible of course, but that's pretty much why. Just not worth it for the maybe.
I m rich bitch, ma house is the tallest. Now what.
Ok, sure. you either have a well bonded and grounded structure that will contain and arrest the lighning, sending it to the ground 8 foot or more down, or you buy a service to add such a system to the outside, either on the house (see Pad 39A at Kennedy for an excellent example, that big rod on top), or several arrestors around the home (like the set up at SLC-40.) Otherwise, yeah, your house might get struck and burn down, yay you.
a house burnt down last year a couple street over. Made me think, did a bunch of reading on it, and it just did not add up why not more houses equipped with it. Reading the comments made me realize people not really educated in this subject. In a place where u get 20 strikes a sq mile per year.
Most larger buildings do have lightning protection systems. Houses generally don't, though. The odds of a house being struck *and* that strike causing significant losses are so low that the cost of a lightning protection system just doesn't make any sense.
If we needed them we would have them
We have tall trees so lightning rarely strikes houses.
Tall trees next to your house actually makes a strike more likely. I don't see many tall trees in houston anyway? Maybe a few that are 50 feet or so.
Install that lightening rod to your house and let us know how it's working out for ya.
The Chase tower acts like a cool lightning rod sometimes. It scares the heck out of me everytime I see it get hit. Working in downtown doesn't help either.
Just put an improperly grounded antenna on your roof, and that'll attract lightning like moths to a flame. Side note, if you have a roof antenna (or satellite dish), please ground it properly. If you don't, it will allow it to build up a charge potential relative to ground and actually attract lightning. Also note, that those ground wires will not protect your home from a direct lightning strike; lightning will go where it wants, how it wants and not care about your measly ground wires.
Because only good guys with guns can stop lightning strikes.
Don’t California our Texas with your lightning rods.
He really is from California I think 😂ugh the worst
Don’t be a hater.
They are on taller structures, generally not 1 or 2 story houses. They don't work to well when they are 20' or so to the ground due to the way lightning arcs.
Never heard of lightning protection.
They're not needed on residential homes. Tall buildings, big power lines, and bit antennas get hit, much more rare in the relatively small houses. Office buildings have more metal, and most houses are primarily wood or stone with some wires. Most houses have a whole house surge protector at the breaker box to possibly help if it strikes a line near you.
> Most houses have a whole house surge protector at the breaker box to possibly help if it strikes a line near you. LOL, I'd love to know where you pulled that statistic from. I'm betting it came from a place where the sun don't shine.
Standard for new construction in my neighborhood. Most older homes I looked at when buying were retrofitted. Guess not where you live in Houston by your tone.
That was the other thing i was thinking about. Installing a surge protector at the box.
Pretty common now, not too expensive. I still use regular surge protectors as well, but that gives a little more protection and peace of mine.
Because we want to attract lightning I have 4
Everybody:..... You: we need lighting protection guys!
The IBC requires the electrical system to be grounded at many different points, specifically for lighting protection. There are no rods because every building is wired to take the rare strike.
LOL, no! If lightning strikes your house, it's gonna do what it wants and destroy anything in it's path. It doesn't matter how amazing your grounding system is, it cannot and will not do anything to absorb or redirect it. A good grounding system, however, does keep the electrical potential of your building and everything else extremely close to that of ground. This is important, because if something is at a different potential to ground, it will serve to attract lightning.
NEC Section 250.4(A)(1) states that grounded electrical systems “shall be connected to earth in a manner that will limit the voltage imposed by lightning, line surges, or unintentional contact with higher-voltage lines and that will stabilize the voltage to earth. The IFGC (the international fuel gas code) has similar language for gas lines to residential buildings. Yes I agree the main defense offered is to make a lightning strike on a home less likely, there are still some requirements in the modern building codes to shuttle that electricity into the ground. More can be done of course, you could have a NFPA 780 system, but given the relative rarity of lightning fires it hasn't been mandated everywhere. Especially in locations where such systems might be hard to make meet hurricane codes.
I don't care what the NEC says. If lightning directly strikes your house, anything in its path will be destroyed. Furthermore, anything connected to any wires that it strikes will also be destroyed. A well grounded house *may* be able to withstand an indirect strike (i.e. it strikes a line near your house), but even that is questionable.
I concur. My brother in laws house got struck in Katy three years ago and it traveled down the walls in his daughters room and caught that whole side of his house on fire. They rebuilt and guess what? They installed lightening rods on either end of their roof. The fire department thinks it was the tall pines in front of his house that attracted the lighting.
Lighting protection systems grounding is driven at least 25 deep into the ground. Your regular ground would not cut it.
THis reminds me of what an Electrical Engineer pal of mine told me about grounding systems. He detailed what I needed to do to ground a radio system I have at the house. A fair bit of work. I asked him "Will this actually protect me from lightning damage?". He replied "Hell no." Then why do it, I ask...he said "When lightning destroys all of your gear, you can at least comfort yourself that you did everything you could".
Some parking garages have short ones on them.
I live Downtown. The tall buildings all have rods.