A tree near our house was hit by a lightning last Sunday night. It destroyed my network switch ($30) and a part of my A/C ($180).
I have now realized that our house is on the highest elevation in the area. So I would like to install some sort of lightning protection. Can anyone point me to the NEC requirements? I talked to our village building department, there is nothing that they would add to the NEC.
i
Installing a lightning protection system isn't DIY, if installed incorrectly it can be hazardous if it takes a strike.....and you won't know it until it's too late.
You might try checking with your local electrical company. We live in a rural area with a co-op power company, and we asked them about lightning protection when we built our house 5 years ago. They sent out a guy who specializes in that stuff. He checked our site and gave us specs and locations for ground rods, copper grounding wire, surge protection on the pole at the highway, surge protection at the meter, surge protection in the house, etc. (lots of redundancy). Our power line is buried for the half-mile run to the highway, we're on a private well, and we have a satellite dish and conventional TV antenna on a 20-foot pole in the back yard, so we are at some risk of lightning damage.
We did what they said to do (or had them do it, in some cases), and then they came back to check it to be sure it was OK. Whatever we did must be working. We've had several strikes in nearby trees, and a lightning surge so strong through the incoming line that the meter blew off the meter pole one night. (Apparently, it was supposed to do that, but it was pretty impressive to see).
C. Brunner
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