We put our wood burner in last year and since then it seems that the chimney is the biggest lightening rod in the mile.
Every time it strikes we see all kinds of flashes inside the house. Last night it hit hard enough to travel back up the wires for the fan and blew the surge supressor on the TV/DVD/lights
I was going to tap the base and run a wire to a ground rod outside. I'm just not sure that that is the best way to go. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Tom
The sooner that the lightnin grounds out the better . Use a big wire , like welding cable and a full 10' lenght of ground rod.
Put a lightning rod near it. A metal pole like well pipe with a sharpened end on top will draw the charge away from the chimney if it is above the chimney by a certain amount and within a certain number of feet. That at least should keep the wiring safe.
Sounds like a real problem. I would do a search on Yahoo or Google for lightning rods and see what pops up. Seems like I have read about the bonding that is neccessary for lightning protection, but I have never heard of it with a flue pipe. I would guess if you would attach a cable lug to 00 aluminum stranded cable and attach the lug to one of the bolts holding the wind brace on the flue pipe if you have one, then the ground end to a 1/2 inch or larger copper clad ground rod. You would then be "bonded" but I would be unsure if it could actually "carry" the full charge of a lightning strike. Lightning rods are not popular here in Oklahoma like they were when I was a kid. Used to be salesmen traveling around peddling them across rural Oklahoma and Texas, but now, when we roof a house, 9 times out of 10, we remove them.
I think I would try the first suggestion.... to put a better lightening rod in that is higher than the flue pipe if your stove, and place it at least 50 feet away from where your flue is. Maybe something as simple as a 20' piece of 3/4" pipe stuck in the ground, and well grounded.
Just paint a little sign on the roof of the burner.. "NO LIGHTNING".. that otta cure it. :D
I agree with the higher attractant nearby.
I thought lightening never struck the same palce twice!
When I was a kid, we had a cherry tree by the house that would get struck at least once a year it seemed. It wasn't near to being the tallest thing around. Neighbors barn had lightning rods, yup, it burned during a storm. I think the ground wires had long since been removed. I'm one of those who seem to attract it, never been hit square, but been knocked on my butt quite a number of times. Whatever else you do, I would at the least run a ground wire to it.
OK here's alittle Education (With me I emphasis Little)
A lighting rod protects what is below in a 45 degree angle. The easest way to protest you stove is actually be patriotic. It is fairly easy to install a Lighting rod out of a metal flag pole but remember the first rule the only thing protested is in the 45 degree shadow. What has happen withyou stove is more than likly you used metal pipes to your water system or sat the slab on a solid rock ledge. If you used metal pipe swap a two foot section with plastic this will help. If you happen to be in a place as my childhood home is we sat on a Zinc deposit. We got to see alot of lighting strikes. One of the things that you don't want to do is nothing. HOuses burn every year.
Thanks for the ideas.
I think I like th flag pole idea. The top of the chimney is about 25' in the air. The neighbors hot wire fence behind the house has takn several hits over the years but not the house. We have plastic water pipes and the foundation is 14" thick concrete setting on good old Indiana clay. Now the chimney is taking all the hits. We took 4 last year and one the other night with the thunderstorm that brought this cold snap moved in
At work we took and hooked a ground rod to the top of a 30' pole and then wired it to 3 grounding rods wired together. maybe I'll do something like that and put a flag up on it. It all depends on the boss but I figure she'll go for about anything as opposed to sparking in the house.
Thanks guys I knew ya'll would know what to do.
Tom
Hi guys;
I used to have a problem with lightning hitting my well pump, at least once a year, I took what was the simple cheap way and ran a wire from the pump to a highline pole ground wire. Bad move, if lightning hit anywhere in a mile I would get hit also. Sometimes I amaze myself with my ignorance. I them did what I should have did in the first place, I drove a lightning rod and put a heavy wire from the ground wire of the pump to it and that was over 5 years ago and have had no hits since.
Good luck, lightning is nothing to fool with.
Skytramp
put a lighting rod on top of the stack and run yur cable to ground on the outside of the house. bury the cable in a trench instead of a rod. the more buried cable ya have the more gooder... the deeper ya go is more gooder too...
Lightening rods don't go on new homes anymore because they're well grounded. You don't actually need a rod on the chimney if your burner is well grounded.
Quote from: Riles on February 19, 2006, 05:59:00 PM
Lightening rods don't go on new homes anymore because they're well grounded. You don't actually need a rod on the chimney if your burner is well grounded.
reread his post....
his house isn't grounded all that well...
rods don't go on on new homes because they add costs...
I've seen some studies that indicate that Lightning not only travels down to the ground, it also travels "UP" from the ground to the clouds.
Additionally, a surplus of positive ions in the atmosphere around your house can reduce the resistance in the air, which draws lighting to strike in and around you.
I like the flagpole idea. It's not a bad idea to drive several ground rods and link them together, attaching them with a wire to the lighting rod on top of the flagpole.
Additionally, in lighting prone sections of the country ion generators are located on tall structures (such as radio towers). Basically these look like a stainless steel porcupine stuck on top of a structure, and grounded. You see a lot of them in Florida (which has the highest incidence of lighting strikes in the country).
At this particular point and time an abundance of positivity around here is probably not the cause. :D :D
to much work and not enough freezing weather to go around. a warm streak is a coming
We like the flag pole idea. Kate is trying to figure out how the flower bed around it is going to look
Tom
Quote from: Part_Timer on February 19, 2006, 08:27:47 PM
We like the flag pole idea. Kate is trying to figure out how the flower bed around it is going to look
After the first good lightning strike, probably dead. :o ::)
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Then what your saying is that I might as well plant them myself since they'd be dead in a week anyway. ???
TOm
The point is the house is grounded better than the burner, that's why he has the problem. Ground the burner.
Riles
I'm gona do that too. I just have to figure out the best way without it looking like dodo or running a 1/0 wire from the bottom of the burner through the wall. Wouldn't that be a site.
I'll take a pic tomorrow of that side of the house. Maybe that will shed some better light on the subject.
Thanks everyone.
Tom
here is that pretty little nifty thing scsmith42 was talking about... my friend has several sailboats, and all of them have one of these things at the top of their aluminum masts
this link (http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10001&productId=13902)
Hope this gives you some ideas too? Maybe something for the top of the flagpole??
I wonder if its true that when lightenning stricks a beach it melts it and forms glass of sorts . Seams i have heard of people digging them up and putting them on display.
Dale
Dale . I saw that in a movie , the guy put out a bunch on of rebar on the beach and if and when the lighting struck , he would dig up a peice of art .
I also was wondering if it was true . Not that I am skeptical or anything like that ... just learned a while back not to believe every thing that came out of Holywood . ;D
Ken
That's pretty neat. My only problem is that it looks to much like a feather duster and I'm not bringing up house work around the wife. :D
I have seen glass that was formed by a downed high power line in sand.
Will
It's called Fulgurite, I have a couple of nice examples of it at home.
It looks like grey sandstone.
Check out:
http://www.minresco.com/fulgurites/fulgurites.htm
Jon
Price is computed at $2.50 / gram, all specimens.
Then rounded up.
Sounds like ya have a money maker in the back yard.
Plant a few poles in a few diff kinds of sand.
Dale ;D ;D ;D
Getoverit, you hit the nail on the head.
A lot of communication towers have these. A lightning strike can wipe out a quarter of a million dollars of cellular base station equipment, so it's worth the investment.
They do make a difference. You need a solid grounding system running from your ground grid to the ionizer for it to work best though. Typically several ground rods are driven in and around the tower base, and connected together with silver solder or exothermic welding (Cadwelding).
Regards, Scott
I was just wondering about the cable suggestions.
If lightening hits your chimney, is a mere cable up to handling the thousands of volts and watts? If you have ever done any boo-boos with a battery, even a 1" inch thick welding cable will go poof. is any cable up to handling that kind of load? Would not a solid piece of metal for grounding be better?
Isn't there a national standard in the code for this?
I could be wrong but I think that the point of the grounding cable is to keep the stove at ground potential and keep it from developing enough differance in potential in the first place ???
I think
Tom