Nature's wrath. Lightning rods?

Was out cultivating corn and my son was putting out liquid nitrogen about an hour ago. Clouds started looking bad and we both stopped. Walked in the house to pull up radar and he was sitting in his truck in front of his shop. Lightning struck and heard a loud pop in the house. Looked around and saw no trouble. Son called, said it struck his house and he smelled smoke. He had just got a call to take the forestry dozer to the mountains where lightning had started a fire. Said his house smelled like smoke and would I come check it. Blew the wires apart going to his phone and left a burn on a tile floor. Also fried a phone box.
Called friend to come check her horses on my place and it blew out her fence charger.
Came back home and found a burned smell in my house. Gonna watch things for a while and go back to cultivating. Didn't get enough rain to wet top of ground.
Anybody use lightning rods on their buildings?
Richard

Don't see them being used much any more.

There is a small dent/dark mark on a china hutch build into the old farm house.

It's from long before my time, lightening hit the phone wires, and blew the old crank phone off the wall, chunk hit the china hutch and left a mark. Guess smoke was about for most of the night, dad said his dad sat up and watched it.

--->Paul

We have a communications tower in the barnyard. 140 feet or so to the top of the radio antenna. Several times we have had to replace the antennas. One had a large copper fitting on the top that looked like a kid had been precticing arc welding on it. We"ve had a couple fiber-glass sheathed antennas that looked like fiberglass feather dusters after a lightning strike. Took a strike on a radio/tv tower at my home, years back. Scattered damages throughout the house, appliances, ham radios, computer stuff (Some of which wasn"t turned on or in operation.) Had a FM receiver attached to a sterio amplifier - took out the amp finals, left the receiver intact, although there were burn marks on the bottom of the receiver where sparks jumped off the bottom of the receiver to the metal filing cabinet it was sitting on.
Lightning goes where it wants, does what it wants, makes it"s own rules.

have lightening rods on my house, no insurance benefits just peace of mind, house is 30 years old. Problem is can come in on power lines, phone lines, even large trees taller than house can be a problem so not sure it pays especially if you have to keep putting on trees and moving them as they grow

A couple of years ago, I talked to my insurance agent and he told me that there is no benefit or savings of money by having lightning rods on the house or out buildings.
I read an article several years ago in a science magazine that shows lighting captured on high speed movie film. According to them, (and the photos that they showed), as the lightning bolt leaves the clouds and heads for the ground (or anything else that it will hit), there is a single bolt heading down, but when it gets about 100-200 feet from it's target, there are several dozen that go upward from the ground to meet the downward bolt. In other words, a single lightning rod really won't matter because there are actually several dozen lighting bolts from a single strike.
How much truth there is to that, I don't know. I'm just going by what the "scientific" article was saying.

i've lived here 16 years and had lightning strike within 75 yards of the house 7 times, was asked if i was gonna put lightning rods on house, i answered i didn't feel like attracting it anymore then it already was.....

When I was little we were staying in a motel due to a house fire (not lightening related). Dad and a friend of his had gone back to work the shop and Dad was sitting on a work bench with an outlet strip along the front, with his feet resting on a metal welding table. His friend said all of a sudden he hit the floor twitching. When they got to the hospital there was a spot on his hip that looked like a spider web where the electricity went into his body and then spread out from there. The doctor said he had been hit indirectly by lightening. We found out later that it had come in on a phone wire, jumped from there into the electrical system through the closest outlet, and then through the wiring out to the shop where it went to ground through Dad and the metal table he was resting his feet on. Inside the house you could easily locate where the power had comem in because it blew the panneling off the wall in the surrounding area.

Too, we lived down the hill from a TV tower. Over the years we'd often watch lightening hit the tower and sometimes it would disipate down the guy wires like glowing balls of fire. Now that was something really cool to see.

I don't use them but then most of my buildings are made of steel and I figure they are my way of keeping lighting from hitting the house. I figure 3 buildings as big or bigger then the house should help keep the lighting some place else I hope

50 years ago while planting lighting hit upright planter marter and exhaust if jd G.. Killed the g for a few seconds. My arms flew straight up and hurt for hours. In 1997 hit metal barn while I was inside long blue arc fron my fingers to table saw fron damp board i was holding upright at that instant. 2 months later my heart skipped stopped skipped After being resitated 7 times in 18 hours ) in hospital life linr helo and another hospital recieved pacemaker. Dr,. says shocks just ruint my natural pasemaker. I kinda be careful mow with storms!!

our hose is 100 years old with lightning rods. In 20 years we have had several strikes, blew out our fence charger 2x, melted a power outlet wire at the TV and melted about 100' of hy-tensile fence wire. All different strikes. My opinion is the rods do their job, and hold the damage down. I plan to put them on the barn eventually.

Build several building with steel roof and siding. You want to make sure you have a wire or strap from the roof to the side so you don't get an arc between them.

Now that I think about it, the trees around Mt. Vernon and Monticello have big cables going up the trunks to the top to prevent damage from lightning. Those trees are hundreds of years old.
As I understand it, a lightning rod dissipates the charge to prevent a strike. Think I will look into it some more.
My son's house has been struck several times in the past few years and the tall poplar trees around my house have also. I live in a low place like a small valley, but there are some huge rock outcroppings just on the surface near the house.
Think I will look into lightning rods.
Richard

Last year lightning struck a house up on top of a hill above our place about 1/4 mi away. It fried every appliance in their house. It fried our power transformer and more up to a mile away. It fried our electric fence charger and the board in the automatic gate opener. Another neighbors inverter for his solar power system fried and it was 1/2 mi away.

I think it doesn't always discharge in one spot, like someone said there can be numerous fingers. The underlayment is all granite here so I think there is not a good ground.