Florida - Lightning Protection

[bob-n]

I seem to recall that one of our experienced moderators is in Florida and that Florida is well known for lightning. What is common practice for protecting homes in Florida from lightning?

All of the web information that I read about lightning seems biased to the supplier or installer selling products and services. I understand that more protection is always better, but I'm having a hard time understanding balance.

The nvent website has a manual describing how to design for IEC 62305

https://www.erico.com/catalog/literature/E907W-WWEN.pdf

That sounds encouraging, because they recommend following a standard, even though it is a European standard. And their manual is very detailed and analytical. But following their recommendations would require placing many ground rods on every roof, spaced roughly 20 feet apart, and tied together with an elaborate ground ring. And guess what: they sell ground rods and ground wiring components.

Yet so few houses have ground rods, let alone an array like that, even in a place known for lightning. And that's separate from electrical protection, which also varies from feeble ($40) to huge ($5000) surge arrestors at the service entrance as well as point-of-use surge suppressors.

Thank you for anything you can share.

[SunEagle]

Hi. I live in Florida and have seen a few homes with lightning protection but most including those with solar do not have rods or wiring that will direct a lightning strike around or away from the home. I think that it is because most homes are low to the ground compared to trees or power lines. Those are what get hit first.

But if you are uncomfortable with not having lightning protection for your home or solar system then I would advise talking to a company that does that kind of work. Remember the "rods" are not always the important part compared to the wiring that will direct the energy to a solid ground grid.