Anyone Have Lightning Rods On Your House ?

[Redbow]

I can remember growing up in the country on a tobacco farm most farm families back in those days had lightning rods on their houses. I used to look for them as we rode along in the car when we had to go to town for something we needed.. The town folks very few had lightning rods on their houses, it seemed to be a country thing. I can remember my Uncle who lived and worked in SC when he bought his first house one of the things that he had done after moving in was getting lightning rods installed. He was a firm believer in them and didn't want to be living in a house without them...My grandparents never had them on their house, we were too poor to afford them anyway. We had giant oak trees around our old country home and lightning often struck those old red oaks. Unlike a pine the lightning never killed the big ole oaks after years of multiple strikes but it did split the bark off them as the high voltage went to ground..

Now days I don''t see lightning rods on anything but the older houses that were built many long years ago. Very rarely do I see lightning rods on a house that had been built even 20 or 30 years or more ago and never on new construction....I guess the idea of lightning rods just faded away with time...

And no, I don't have lightning rods on my house either..

 

[GeorgiaGlockMan]

Take a look at a Disney property skyline. They have them on every building at about 20 ft intervals.

I was standing next to a brick building when lighting struck it 30 years ago.

All I remember is every hair on my body standing straight up. Looking up after hitting the ground, it was raining wheelbarrows full of bricks. A clump of bricks hit the car at the sidewalk and smashed the roof and hood good.

I respect the power of a bolt!

 

[Redbow]

Yeah I know big buildings often have lightning rods but I don't see any or know of anyone now days who have them on the house that they live in ..Many on this forum are not old enough to remember when lots of folks had lightning rods on houses..

 

[mrs. hornet22]

My grandparents had a pretty tall house and they had them on theirs. I see lots of them in our town of beautiful old homes.

 

[Deerhead]

We were having lighting issue at my office. A vain of granite ran under the facility. While we were doing a large expansion I installed lighting protection (rods) on the entire facility. It was not cheep but neither was all the electronics were were looking each time a thunder storm rolled through.

 

[specialk]

we didnt rebow, the house i grew up in was built in the 55' and they had pretty much quit putting them up by then....they're still some up though back where i grew up....

 

[Cmp1]

Yep, two of them,real old ones,,,,

 

[GeorgiaGlockMan]

I still see them on some older houses.

Another lightning jab...

Right after college, living in Dallas, tx, the apartment building next to the one I lived in 20 ft away was hit by lightning about 1 am one Monday morning.

Less than 20 minutes; the whole 8 unit (8x2 bedrooms units, 2 story) was engulfed in flames.

The demo and rebuild was worse than the first mess as I was working 2nd shift. I'd get home and 4 hours in bed, daylight and then saws..lots of them running at 730.

I was a mess for the next month till i moved out.

The only thing that's saved my tall house in GA from several lightning strike is the power line right behind my house....and a few nearby trees.

Learned the hard way that every TV and computer really needs a good surge protector. A strike that comes in a power line can be expensive when you have to replace every TV, cable box, fridges and hvac brains.

Hit Trees?....try to cut them down before they dry out for safety sake.

 

[Redbow]

I remember a few years back my Mom was in the hospital in Smithfield NC..Her room was in the new section of the hospital. Standing and looking out the window in her room I could see the entire flat roof of the old hospital.. About every 50 feet or so were lightning rods all tied together with cable..I don't know if the new section had them or not..

 

[basstrkr]

Got'em in the yard its looks like a chain link fence,

 

[NE GA Pappy]

My dad has got one from off the old home place. It is solid copper and corroded to the green color that copper gets. It is hanging above a double door going into the family room in his house. I don't know of a single house around here with working lightening rods on it.

 

[Duff]

I remember them as a kid. We had one with a rooster on it

 

[fireman32]

I don’t, but I’m surrounded by tall pines and pecan trees so I have natural lightning rods.

 

[trad bow]

Most cattle and dairy barns around here still have them.

 

[Hillbilly stalker]

My grandparents had them on their house. They lived up on the ridge and had few trees in the yard and several pastures around the house. Every time it would lightening, they learned the hard way to unplug their appliances. They would loose a wall clock pert near every time. You had to watch tho....there was a group of people called “ travelers” that went around the country and beat Older folks out of their money, lightening prods were one of their gigs. They were about like Gypsies if you ever dealt with any of them. I was there one day when lightening hit the house and made the old rotary phone ring. My buddies that work for the phone company say it’s impossible...but I saw it firsthand. They never had any more trouble after the lightening rods tho.

 

[zedex]

My grandmother's house had one. It was built in 19 and 27. ( had to do that-- for the old folks here).

In the early 80s, my parents put a mobile home on the back section of the property and that's where we lived. I asked my father about getting a lightning rod for it. My mother quickly pointed out that "we live in a trailer. The whole (enter foul word here,) is a lightning rod".

 

[wvdawg]

Bunch of them on the older homes back in WV. I always called them "whippets".
I told my sales team back then to look for them as they were driving through the countryside, and if they saw one to "whippet" right into the driveway because anybody who would buy one of those things would buy anything!

 

[Nicodemus]

Lightning rod salesmen, traveling medicine shows, and snake oil peddlers are a thing of the past nowadays.

 

[leroy]

There was a dirty jobs episode that involved a business installing lightning rods/protection systems in residential settings

 

[Batjack]

Can't say I haven't looked into it, after my neighbor's house (which is down the hill from mine) got hit the second time... in four years.