Lightning protection

[dwiemer]

Hey all, with the recent damage to the home of one of the posters (sir james), I thought it would be prudent to see if we can get some of our experts to perhaps give some advice regarding the protecton of our homes and equipment (yes, even trains) from the destructive power of a lightning strike.

I know our EMC offers a "whole house surge protection" which is a pay for service per month.  I suspect that there is a way to do this without paying the electrical company.  I will yield to those more knowledgable in the field to give advice.

So, What are the best methods to protect ones home from such events?

Thanks,
Dennis

[ChiefEagles]

Bet our own Mr. John Fullerton will answer this one.  He was the big electrical contractor until he got lazy and stayed home to play with trains.

[Anonymous]

From my understanding the key is a proper Earth Ground.  Your home should be grounded via your waterpipe and if not, it is something a Certified Electrician can do for under $100.00.  Sometimes they will also drive a copper rod 8 - 10ft down to provide additional grounding.  Also, anything that sticks above your roof line (antenaes, chimneys, etc) should be seperately grounded using the 8 - 10ft copper rod.

Now on the inside I would recommend HIGH QUALITY line conditioners for your home stereo, not only will this provide clearer, crisper colored, images, but it will also provide MUCH clearer audio.  With the added benefit of a smoother electrical wave AND most come with some form of insurance against lightning spikes and can also protect your phone line and your cable/SAT line (going to your home entertainment center).

For computers I recommend nothing other than APC UPSes.  They are by far the best on the market and provide the best warranty protection.  APC also sells surge protectors that can be used to protect your fridge, freezers, etc.

[Anonymous]

All homes should have an earth ground at the service panel, and every electrical code calls for this. I would be surprised if your home did not have one. In any event, this alone is not good protection for your electrical/electronic appliances.

 The best approach is two layered. First, a whole house surge protector on its own breakers at the service panel (where the line comes to the house). These range in price from $80 to $275 depending on brand and energy dissipation capability. You should be able to find them at your big hardware store, but you may want a qualified electrician to install it.

The second layer is at your wall outlet. You should have a fully grounded outlet, and plugged into that a decent quality multiple outlet surge protector. Usually uninteruptible power supplies as made by APC and others offer this type of protection and more, but are overkill for your less expensive appliances.

 One other habit to minimize damage from nearby lightning strikes: make sure all devices that interconnect electrically in any way all pull their power from the same grounded outlet. For example, avoid powering some A/V equipment from one outlet, and other connected A/V equipment from another physically separate outlet - especially if they are on different panel circuit breakers. The differences in their ground runs can allow voltage differentials to develop during a large voltage spike, and induce a  current flow between them through your interconnected equipment with dismaying results.

 Finally, with a direct lightning strike to your home, all of this may still not protect your equipment. The amount of power in a strike is huge, and almost impossible to protect against. The aforementioned measures will help in the event of a nearby strike.

If you want even more complete protection from a direct strike, well grounded lighting rods/charge dissipators on the high points of your house would be necessary. And even a large gauge solid wire isn't really enough of a ground path for dissipation of a strike. The high frequency component of the strike travels on the surface of conductors, so a wide, flat conductor does a better job than a solid wire with less surface area. Lightning can do some very strange things.

[luther_stanton]

We have a whole house surge protector - installed by an electrician at the service panel.  All our computers and A/V equipment are protected by surge protectors or UPSes.  My trains are on a dedicated surge protector as well.  As a tough to beat level of protection - I never leave the trains (via the surge protector) plugged in when not in use.  When I have an operating session I plug everything in and when I am done I unplug them.  Being in Georgia there are a lot of pop up lightening storms - keeping things unplugged when not in use ensures I will not be caught by surprise. 

We also have seen an unusual number of power brown outs and brief service interruptions over the last month or so.  Just this morning we lost service for 5 hours.  These types of events (brown outs and brief interruptions) raise havoc with electronics like computers, TVs and stereos.  Having solid protection against these events is vital.  The "unplug when not in use" method is pretty hard to beat - but can be inconvenient at times.

Just my two cents.

[phillyreading]

Lightning is a strange creature as it does differant things in differant parts of the earth, Austalia has "ball lightning" it comes in the house and roams around, this country has positive and negative charged lightning strikes.

Most of your APC and other equipment will protect against the ocassional voltage spike but not against a direct lightning strike.  Lightning has been measured to be over 100,000 volts, so do you think that anything will protect against it?

I had an experiance in Georgia when I lived therre for a few years, lightning struck by my water pump outside and it followed the wires back up to my fuse box and shattered the fuses in both my water pump box and my main fuse box, don't know if it went up the wires to the electric company's input.  Didn't have water for almost 24 hours asa we had to get the water pump man out to look at the pump, the water pump was fine, just blasted the fuses!!!

I unplug stuff when I am not using it, like my train transformers, or when I go away for a few days.

Lee F.

[sir james I]

All very good suggestions above, but as I have learned NOTHING will protect your home from a lightning strike. Removing everything thats plugged in is best, but how many of us run through the house before each storm, or not at home. I lost things that were plugged in but not on,even things where the lite switch was off. the trains are ok I think as most were unplugged I better check the one that was plugged in but turned off. thankfully wife and I were not harmed as we were just inside the room where the strike occured.apx. 5ft. so I say do all the above that you can and thank god when you are still here after.   Regards,   Sir James

7:13PM all engines on the rails are working. I've been busy getting repairs done I did not think to check the trains. but they are ok.