Lightning rods used to be installed on all houses, with huge grounding pipes ran into the ground, and high rods across the entire roof. That practice has stopped. Why?
2006-09-01 04:47:12 · 6 answers · asked by Old Man 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Weather
They do not work.
A strike will be conducted to ground but will travel down the outside of the conductor generating some very high temperatures along the way. The high temperatures will certainly start fires and cause brick and concrete to explode because of the high temperature differentials. You can expect temperatures in line with the surface temperature of the sun.
The only protection that has a chance of working is a mast a little way from the house with a lightning rod on top and a really good path to ground at the base. Anything within a 45 degree cone drawn from the top of the mast will be protected. There generally is not enough room on a small lot for this, it is also expensive to build and maintain. City planners do not find things like this attractive to look at.
2006-09-01 05:02:15 · answer #1 · answered by Stewart H 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Lightning Rod Installation
2016-10-06 12:44:53 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Lightning Rods For Homes
2016-12-15 06:54:42 · answer #3 · answered by falacco 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
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RE:
Why aren't lightning rods installed in houses anymore?
Lightning rods used to be installed on all houses, with huge grounding pipes ran into the ground, and high rods across the entire roof. That practice has stopped. Why?
2015-08-19 03:10:49 · answer #4 · answered by Jim 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The real answer is that lightning rods are still installed on houses and other buildings. The recent lightning strike upon the space shuttle demonstrates that a lighting rod system can prevent most of the damage due to a lightning strike. Lighting rods are not installed on most homes because of economic issues. The likely hood of a direct lightning strike to on a home is negligible unless the home is the tallest structure around. In most subdivisions homes are equally tall dividing the likely hood of a strike evenly between them. The cost of a lightning rod system is more than the cost of the risk of a strike. It is an interesting side note about electrical grounding. Proper grounding does not make a home less likely to be struck by lighting, to the contrary, it creates a path to ground that the lightning is seeking. In fact a grounded house is more likely to be struck than a non-grounded one. And in the event of a direct strike, the massive amperage developed in a strike will still damage a home. What grounding does protect against is electrical component failure from electrical strikes any where in the vicinity. With out grounding electrical components would be destroyed from any strike within miles of the home.
2006-09-01 07:28:54 · answer #5 · answered by Pete D 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Actually, they are still installed, they just are not as noticeable anymore, unless you are looking for them. Modern lightning rods are little bigger then pencils, maybe about a foot long, and slightly smaller in length. They don't stop lightning strikes, never have, but what they do is give a channel for the lightning to travel through, often a small simple insulated copper wire, hidden beneath the roof line, and into the ground where you won't notice it. Almost all public buildings still use them, and in homes it is up to whomever pays for the construction.
2015-01-26 04:45:39 · answer #6 · answered by ? 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Another reason for the drop in use of the lightning-rod today is that they probably have charge-inducing equipment to protect a specific entity from lightning.
Such a device induces a charge through the air in the vicinity of what needs to be protected. That charge is equal in its polarity to the charge at the base of the cloud, whereas the ground out of the device's range is opposite to the charge at the base of the cloud, thus completing a full channel of electrical current, and getting hit in the process.
2006-09-03 08:31:07 · answer #7 · answered by Peter R 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
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Some States have a Real Estate Disclosure Law.. that means that the SELLER must disclose any deficiencies that they are aware of. Obviously... if they lived in the house... and the dishwasher was putting water into the basement... they most likely knew this. See a lawyer who for a few hundred dollars can send a letter to the Realtor and the Seller... if your state has the disclosure laws.
2016-04-06 02:23:47 · answer #8 · answered by Patricia 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
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2015-08-04 20:33:35 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
All electrical systems are properly grounded.
At one time they were not.
2006-09-01 04:49:58 · answer #10 · answered by ed 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋