Lightning

[nbstl68]

The garage was hit by lightning last weekend.
Sitting in the living room looking out the atrium window at the time it looked and felt like I'd imagine a nearby bomb blast might feel. A massive boom that shook the house and an orange fireball like flash lit up the entire yard and interior for a split second.
We had experienced this once before in '08 and it obliterated literally everything electronic in and out of the house.
We have since installed lightening rods and whole house suppressors on the main panels.
I assumed this meant we could not be hit again but I was wrong.
At least this time, the protection did limit the damage to just the garage where it blew our sprinkler controllers and battery out of the wall box, singed the otlets and blew a GFCI.
But that was the extent of the damage. The camera switch and computer are also on a UPS surger protector \ battery backup so they were fine, even the garage camera.

A few days later I realized the cameras might show something and I pulled these clips, (slowed down to 1/4 speed via the BI phone app).

The exterior cam was in color and pretty much reflects just what we saw light \ color wise.
Kind of cool.

Garage


Basement Exterior


Basement Exterior

 

[GuiBou]

Wow!

What's running or flying in the third video?



Envoyé de mon Nexus 7 en utilisant Tapatalk

 

[nbstl68]

Looks like a freaked out bird from a birdhouse to the left of the camera.

 

[Mike A.]

Cat says "What the... I'm outta here!!!" lol

 

[tangent]

Time to replace all your surge protectors and surge suppressors. I'd consider a full ground ring all the way around the house. I'm sad to report getting struck by lighting hasn't increased my odds of winning the lottery.

We've got a telephone pole in the mountains that's been struck so many times it's nearly split in half.

 

[MarcW]

its a catch 22, the more you ground your house and add lightning rods to protect your home, the more lighting is attracted to your home because of the ground potential difference. I have heard experts go back and forth of if its safer to ground the shit out of your home and install upwardly facing rods (the Europeans homes do this a lot) or not.

I personally would install several very tall grounding poles a few hundred feet away from the home so lighting would get attracted there first....or if you have tall flag pole outside, add a few grounding rods to that instead so it becomes the biggest attractor.

 

[tangent]

It is time to replace your surge suppressors, the MOVs can only handle so much.

 

[nbstl68]

It is time to replace your surge suppressors, the MOVs can only handle so much.

So you think I need to replace all surge suppressors?
Everything else throughout the house was fine. The whole home suppressors, (mounted to the main electric panels) are "green light".
We have lightning rod system on the house. They run to grounding rods that go 8 ft into the ground. I'm assuming it id did direct hit somewhere on the house, this is why no further damage was done.
I see no evidence of damage to the house but it may be there somewhere in the rafters or who knows where possibly. Only damage to the house was the sprinkler system plugged into the garage wall and that outlet line to the GFCI and main breaker. Outside I found it fried the pump start relay...maybe the lake pump itself but not sure yet. So it may have come in through the earth to the buried sprinkler system wiring....rods on the roof would never help that.

 

[tangent]

So you think I need to replace all surge suppressors?

I would. They get a little weaker every time they take a hit, even small spikes from devices on site weaken them over time. The whole house ones may be ok, but no guarantees

 

[fenderman]

most companies will replace them free of charge...though they might need to show a failure light...

 

[tangent]

most companies will replace them free of charge...though they might need to show a failure light...

Those warranties aren't very helpful imho. They're written to be secondary to other things like your homeowners insurance. I suggest proactively replacing surge suppressors for your most sensitive/valuable electronics. The whole house ones have a higher clamping voltage and might have more life left. Also make sure to add your sprinkler timer and garage door opener to surge protectors.

 

[fenderman]

Those warranties aren't very helpful imho. They're written to be secondary to other things like your homeowners insurance. I suggest proactively replacing surge suppressors for your most sensitive/valuable electronics. The whole house ones have a higher clamping voltage and might have more life left. Also make sure to add your sprinkler timer and garage door opener to surge protectors.

I dont mean replacing the damaged item - we all know they never pay...i mean replacing the surge protector itself..

 

[nbstl68]

None of the surge protectors went red light so UI assume nothing I can or need do with that probably.

Our first hit, which prompted us to get the rods and Whole house protectors literally fried every electronic component we had, and some at a neighbor's house.
Unfortunately it was 2008...just before HDMI \ Flat panels were out in mass and still not cheap...so they replaced 9 TVs with nice new tube TVs and a non-HDMI Dennon receiver.

 

[cam235]

Impressive to me that your camera system survived and continued to operate with a direct hit. Long ago there was a long-wire antenna out my 2nd-story bedroom window. Fortunately I was downstairs when the lightning hit the antenna and blasted our telephone, tv, radio, lights etc. and started a smoldering fire entirely inside the wall. Lightning rods went up after that, and there have been no problems in the 40 years since then.

 

[nbstl68]

We actually have lightning rods. I'm told and now see that is not a total guarantee. Most likely lightning hit very nearby and came up through sprinkler system wiring in the ground to the controller. I think this makes sense as only the controller and the outlets and GFCI on that wire run were damaged and that breaker tripped.

 

[j4co]

Old thread, but i am now thinking a lightning protection setup for new to build home.

Companys here advise the following:
- rods on roof (quite high with 2 meters length)
- ring around the border of the flat roof top.
- 2 runs down to the ironworks in the concrete fundation of the home which is connected to the steel enforced concrete poles we built on (10 meter long poles the house stands on)
- there will be AC inlet units to surpress a overvoltage from a nearby hit on the AC network.
- there will be DC inlet units in between the solar panels and the inverter.
- there will be AC supressor on the AC side of the inverter.
- there will be AC supressor on the water heatpump.

Any good tips online how a system should be setup ?
We have Germand company Dehn und Sohne over here wich are well know.

 

[tangent]

Old thread, but i am now thinking a lightning protection setup for new to build home.

Companys here advise the following:
- rods on roof (quite high with 2 meters length)
- ring around the border of the flat roof top.
- 2 runs down to the ironworks in the concrete fundation of the home which is connected to the steel enforced concrete poles we built on (10 meter long poles the house stands on)
- there will be AC inlet units to surpress a overvoltage from a nearby hit on the AC network.
- there will be DC inlet units in between the solar panels and the inverter.
- there will be AC supressor on the AC side of the inverter.
- there will be AC supressor on the water heatpump.

Any good tips online how a system should be setup ?
We have Germand company Dehn und Sohne over here wich are well know.

I've never really delved that deeply into it, but here are a few links that might be useful:

http://www.ul.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/LightningProtectionAG.pdf
https://pdhonline.com/courses/e367/e367content.pdf
NFPA 780: Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems
Is Your Lightning Protection System What It Should Be?

 

[j4co]

That first link shows me that the proposal i received makes sense.
Type of roof is: Mansard and that show a ring on the topside and 2 runs down.

Also the specific length of the rod's are mentioned:

the air terminal tip is located at not less than 10 inches above the protected object if the interval spacing is not more than 20 feet between air terminals. If a 24-inch air terminal is used, the air terminal spacing may be increased to 25 feet

As the roof is at the top side about 8.4x4.4 meters like 27x14 feet or about that.

A simple system of 10 inch above the solar panels (which will be at 15 degrees angled, so about 12" high) seems much mor attractive than the 2 larger poles i am offered (which seem to be about 2 a 2.5 meters, or 6-8 feet)

Will need to talk it through as i rather install a bunch of 24 inch sized rods (would be 6 of them) in the pattern shown on the above image on the edge than the proposed 2 longer poles.

Edit: found these which are 1 meter long.
Dehn+Söhne Fangeinrichtung Niro/Al 123 109 - Elektro4000.de - Elektroartikel Online-Shop

Since they cost like. 5-10% of the 2.5 meter poles, it would be also much cheaper to put 6 of them on the edges and middle in the length direction of the roof edge. Need only to figure out what the risk of induction will be of the solar wires that run on the top roof. They would be at 90 degree angle, and like 50 cm or more away, as this is the border of the panels.

After some more reading i seem to need to have 4 downlinks to earth, but from any point on a ring there seem only 2 possible routes down, except on the rod that is in the ring where downlink is. This one has 3routes. <= fixed this with a interlink in the middle, so i would create 4x4 meter blocks and always 3 routes with even the 3rd split over 2 downlinks.

This seems to split the risk of induction in half to 1/3 rd, better said the distance to any object that could be damaged by induction in half. If my math is not failing me it would be 49 cm.

Will discuss with lightning installer if this is an option.

 

[Bradmph]

WOW, talk about making your hair stand on end, cameras survived.!!!

 

[j4co]

Yes the damage shown in the opening post seem induction from the leads to earth over to electrical wires.

We need to have the electra lines more than 50 cm from the leads down to earth if i calculated it right.
But still than induction might occur.
So solve this every electrical outlet must have a proction unit