House, Lightning Protection?

[swissie]

As hard as I look, can't see a Thai-House, even expensive ones, with "proper" lightning protection devices. (As it is mandatory in my home-country).

I am just starting to wonder: Do lightnings never select a house to strike in Thailand? And if they do, for some magical reasons, can Thai-Houses just not be set ablaze by lightning ?!?

Cheers.

[Crossy]

Finding domestic level Franklin rods etc. not easy, plenty at commercial prices

We had a direct hit last year (there's a thread somewhere), our well grounded steel roof structure limited damage to 3 ridge tiles and some fried electronics.

[Naam]

i have proper lightning protection but 2 weeks ago there was a strike into the phone lines which fried two modem/routers, one hub plus another modem exclusively used for VOIP.

question: how can i protect my phone lines (used only for internet) without throttling down speed or quality?

[jcgodber]

I route my land line cable through my APC which is also grounded and then finally through a Leonics TPS Series Power line and surge protector. So far so good for a few years now. I still have about 7-9 M bps

[Pib]

About two years ago lightning struck my neighbor's house only meters away and blew a hole in their concrete shingle/tile roof....took out around 6 shingles. During that strike I lost my ADSL modem, separate router, and a couple of power adapters for two cordless phones.

[Torrens54]

So any suggestions on WHERE to get the Rods along with installation and costs?

[Cloggie]

The best protection is to disconnect all cables in case of lightning.

[joshstiles]

to answer your questions....Thai houses are immune from lightning strikes and they are also fire proof if they have received the proper blessing from the monk and the front door faces the right direction....

[X pat]

That last one makes me feel sooooooooo much better.

[glcdc]

only protection you can be assured of is God. maybe your time when youre hit until then be glad youre alive

[RigPig]

As I have stated in previous posts, I am an electrical Field Foreman in charge of 6 oil rigs in Saudi Arabia, and have worked (on land) all over the world. Lightning protection is actually VERY complicated as there are different forms of lightning and different situations influence it's effects.

The first thing I have to say is controlling lightning (Giga Volts) is all but impossible. However having said that, it is possible to contain the damage caused by lightning. Ideally you would string a "grid" of cables above the building which would pass it to ground. Not very practical and expensive!

Now I can only speak from experience here, and I am sure there are differing views, however.....

Most lightning (odds wise) will not strike a dwelling under 4 stories high. Most lightning will hit a transformer down the road causing a "spike" which will damage your appliances etc. I feel that if your house got a direct hit there would be little you could do to control the damage, you may be able to "steer" it in a "better" direction, but probably not all of it.

You can install at your switch board lightning and surge suppression, which basically comprises of a set of Metal Oxide Varistors (MOV's) which are designed to blow on excessive voltage and break the circuit and thus limiting any damage.

An oil rig is a big piece of metal (180 ft or more) above the ground, it is grounded by the virtue of it's operation, a piece of pipe going deep into the ground. The danger with our electronics is the "spillage", going back to the control room and damaging expensive equipment. The trick is to catch the "spillage.

Imagine having a piece of 12 inch pipe and throwing a bucket of water at it, 90% of the water will probably go down the pipe. It's the other 10% that causes the problems. So dig a trench around the pipe and channel the water into the pipe, problem solved. You need somewhere for the initial strike to go (a lightning rod) and then ground rods surrounding it to "channel" it into the main ground (pipe). Not easy to achieve in a house in practice.

There are commercial (and far more complicated) methods available but they are probably worth more than your house.

This is a VERY simplistic explanation, and is subject to argument and debate, I have only posted this as a rough guide as to what is actually happening.

Hope it helps

[firefox999uk]

Global House in the same place where the earthing rods are kept...

Thats if you mean the little rods about a foot long with the shorter little rods coming out

like a wigwam shape.

Have A Nice Day

[joshstiles]

GOD? what if there is no god? Is it just a roll of the dice then?

Sent from my GT-S7270 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[CharlesHH]

-Lightning's choice of spots to hit....... there is no way to predict; a man with a golf club over his shoulder in an open field surrounded by trees seems almost as likely as a 1000 foot tower, certainly a possibility. The theory is that dis similar charge builds up between the ground and the clouds due to the friction of air molecules moving against each other, static electricity. When the charge is big enuf, what that is can be disputed, there will be a spark, a discharge, a lightning strike.

-Many Thai houses are made of non metallic roofing material and concrete/brick walls. That material does not conduct as well as metal, even when wet, so there is some protection to such houses.

-A house can be fitted with lightning rods with big cables to ground, but another type of "protection" is a tall metal tower nearby. That could be a two story tower holding a water tank which could be a more likely target to take a hit and spare the house. There is no absolute protection.

-The problem here in using a UPS with "line filter" or an outlet strip with over voltage clamping, limiting, is that those devices work with a ground. If your house wiring is TWO pin sockets and only two pins, those sockets are not grounded. You can have a three pin cord and plug, but if the socket has no third pin for ground, there is NO ground and all your supposed protection devices will not work correctly. You can also see three pin sockets, but remove the cover plate and see that there is no ground wire attached to the third pin, oops.

-grounded three pin sockets can be installed, but be sure such an installation takes the third wire, the ground, to an actual copper rod in the earth, not screwed to a concrete wall as you see often.

-not a good idea to DIY your own ground installation for the main reason that you do not want your grounding installation to be a "better" ground than the commercial power electric distribution system. Hope to hire a competent electrician; show him a "wire nut" and if he does not know what it is, get a new fellow.

Unplugging is the only near-perfect answer for protection....... but then there is induction....... oh all the things to know.....

[stgrhe]

i have proper lightning protection but 2 weeks ago there was a strike into the phone lines which fried two modem/routers, one hub plus another modem exclusively used for VOIP.

question: how can i protect my phone lines (used only for internet) without throttling down speed or quality?

I recommend installing arrestors type Blitzduktor from German company DEHN. I have them on my incoming internet line and for the satellite antenna cable. http://www.dehn-inte...blitzductorr-sp

The local ABB agent, PMK, can supply them. http://www.pmk.co.th/

The attached picture (bottom left) shows the arresters and the high-capacity fuses for the incoming underground power lines. These arresters are also from DEHN.

Edited June 13, 2014 by stgrhe

[stgrhe]

i have proper lightning protection but 2 weeks ago there was a strike into the phone lines which fried two modem/routers, one hub plus another modem exclusively used for VOIP.

question: how can i protect my phone lines (used only for internet) without throttling down speed or quality?

I recommend installing arrestors type Blitzduktor from German company DEHN. I have them on my incoming internet line and for the satellite antenna cable. http://www.dehn-international.com/en/new-arrester-series-blitzductorr-sp

The local ABB agent, PMK, can supply them. http://www.pmk.co.th/

The attached picture (bottom left) shows the arresters and the high-capacity fuses for the incoming underground power lines. These arresters are also from DEHN.

Edited June 13, 2014 by stgrhe

[Naam]

I route my land line cable through my APC which is also grounded and then finally through a Leonics TPS Series Power line and surge protector. So far so good for a few years now. I still have about 7-9 M bps

this is the protection built into an APC. i cannibalised an old one to see whether it can be used. i'm not an electronics expert but looks like a joke to me that these parts can prevent a high voltage lightning strike.

[Naam]

i have proper lightning protection but 2 weeks ago there was a strike into the phone lines which fried two modem/routers, one hub plus another modem exclusively used for VOIP.

question: how can i protect my phone lines (used only for internet) without throttling down speed or quality?

I recommend installing arrestors type Blitzduktor from German company DEHN. I have them on my incoming internet line and for the satellite antenna cable. http://www.dehn-international.com/en/new-arrester-series-blitzductorr-sp

The local ABB agent, PMK, can supply them. http://www.pmk.co.th/

The attached picture (bottom left) shows the arresters and the high-capacity fuses for the incoming underground power lines. These arresters are also from DEHN.

this is not protecting phone lines! i have a more sophisticated system that protects from lightning strikes, excess and low voltage for my electrical system by shutting down individual phases. but i can't integrate neither my phone lines nor my satellite connections.

I recommend installing arrestors type Blitzduktor from German company DEHN.

will order it once i figured out the exact configuration. did you install it yourself and if yes would you be kind enough to assist me with some advice?

Edited June 13, 2014 by Naam

[Chao Lao Beach]

Finding domestic level Franklin rods etc. not easy, plenty at commercial prices

We had a direct hit last year (there's a thread somewhere), our well grounded steel roof structure limited damage to 3 ridge tiles and some fried electronics.

You can get them in Global. Solid copper, (well mixed a bit I spose but not plated) with 4 spikes. Only a few thousand baht each. Getting them installed is anther issue, most Thai sparkies believe that if a storm is 20km away it will come to your house if you have these.

You can get real copper earth rods at Global. Several thousand baht each.

Well also grounded the 4 corners of the steel roof to a rod in the ground.

Also the roof frame walls welded to the steel rero in the concrete post, many post were connected to a copper rod under the foundations.

Of course the electrics were grounded.

Of the cables from the street, we had these little thiingos, I forget name, that are connected to the inbound lines and grounded and are meant to sacrifice in the even of a strike on the power lines as well. I am sure crossy knows their name.

On each box in the house also had surge protectors.

Many appliances were on UPS's as well, internet ADSL (copper phone lines) can go through this. Belkin is a good brand. I am not sure how you would protect a fiber optic cable though.

Doing at he planning stage, extra cost was minimal.

I forget the name of the Gadget that I had to import from Australia, that was impossible to find in Thailand that went between the sat dish and the box, it is a standard gizmo in Oz..

Edited June 13, 2014 by Chao Lao Beach

[Chao Lao Beach]

PS, I believe that (I am not 100% sure) that a common UPS (or Belkin surge protector need to have a good earth (ground) to work, needs somewhere to dump the load.

Please feel free to correct me, just thinking about this now, I would like to know as often in hotel rooms, nothing is earthed.

[Naam]

You can get real copper earth rods at Global. Several thousand baht each.

i used for a fraction of the money copper pipes with inserted steel rebar. no need for solid copper rods.

[Chao Lao Beach]

i have proper lightning protection but 2 weeks ago there was a strike into the phone lines which fried two modem/routers, one hub plus another modem exclusively used for VOIP.

question: how can i protect my phone lines (used only for internet) without throttling down speed or quality?

I have never considered that going via a surge protector slows it down, I really do not know. I am interested in this answer as well.

[wdr]

I use for all my electronic devices a SPD's (Surge Protector Device). One of them cost me MYR 150 (THB 1500) and saved me thousands of US$.

They are specified as: Surge rating = 10 kV using industry standard 1.2/50 micro seconds wave. I connected each power extender I use for electronic devices to a SPD. This year I had no problems. Last year 2 times my electronics has been blown off. Last week only my neighbours electronics (5 houses).

[CharlesHH]

Look folks, if your electrical socket has ONLY TWO PINS, two holes for the plugs to go into, YOU DO NOT HAVE A GROUND.

If you have no ground, none of your expensive or cheap spike protectors or UPS boxes will really protect what is plugged into them. With lightning, never say never, but all these protection outlet strips and UPS work by diverting a surge of electricity on the AC lines to ground. A few have things like MOVs which will clamp off high spikes of extra voltage on the AC lines, but almost all of all "lightning protection" or surge protection devices NEED A GROUND or will not work.

THE POINT IS THE LACK OF A GROUND at the electrical socket, the outlet, on the wall.

[CharlesHH]

Well designed lightning protection outlet strips or UPS will not degrade anything related to the AC voltage and not the speed of the telephone data line. NONE.

The little illuminated ON switch does consume electricity in the form of light and heat and will add a tiny amount to your electric cost. However, imagine all those little switch lights all over the world wasting electricity by glowing should be a great amount all added up.

In fact, just add up the electrical usage if everything is turned off but is on standby power, ready for a remote to turn the device fully ON. The total is surprising...........add stereo, 3 tv, microwave and other clocks, things batteries being charged, cable box, computer on sleep, lighted switches on outlet strips, and hundreds of other things would be for a typical American home would be about 90 watts. The cost would be the same as running a 100 watt incandescent light bulb, non fluorescent, all the time, all day, all year. Think of the waste.

[Paulzed]

Get an Illegal Cambodian to stand on the roof.

[RigPig]

GROUNDING.

I am not going into this deeply but, first I have NEVER seen a pure copper ground rod, the reason is they would be too soft to drive into the ground any distance, they are (as far as I am aware) steel rods with a copper sheath.

It DOESN'T matter how much metal you have in contact with the earth, it is the depth that counts. The minimum I would consider would be 4 foot or 1200mm. But THIS MAY NOT BE ENOUGH!! You will only know if you conduct an Earth Loop Impedance Test, good luck with that one in Thailand, it requires a special meter and it is expensive. It is MANDATORY in Australia on new or altered installations. The reason it is the depth that counts is because the deeper you go the closer to the water table you get, the damper the soil is, the better the conductivity is. Simple really. You can (not sure about Thailand) buy ground rods which can be driven and another one screwed to it so you can keep going deeper. For lightning protection the MINIMUM size cable which should be used is 70mm2. It should be fixed firmly ALL THE WAY against a solid surface. The reason for this is so that when it turns to charcoal (and it will) it leaves a carbon track for the electricity to follow.

[Sheryl]

It is not only lightening strike on the house too consider (or even primarily, as odds are against that especially if only a 2 story house and larger structures around).

You need to consider a lightening strike anywhere along the electrical grid causing a surge into your house. That has happened to me several timers.

You can get a large surge protector for the entire mainboard of your house from Leonics (and as far as I an tell, only from Leonics), that is what I have done - completely burned through one after multiple surges then replaced it with another...but no damage to the house wiring or appliances because the device took the hit.

This is what I have http://www.leonics.com/product/power_quality/surge_protector/dl/LS-113.pdf

If possible have Leonics install it themselves (unless you have the skills to do so) as finding a local "electrician" who knows what he is doing, or has even seen such a device before, can be hard.

Most Thais are not into electrical safety measures, as the main dangling electrical wires you see about (and the number of deaths from electrocution annually) attests..

Edited June 13, 2014 by Crossy
link corrected

[masuk]

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND STANDARDS have a publication on the installation of lightning conductors.

It's years since I read through the booklet, and of course it will have been updated, but it made interesting reading.

They're available for sale.

Try this: it includes a preview.

http://infostore.saiglobal.com/store/Details.aspx?ProductID=361626

[khunPer]

I had a lighting protection, the brass spikes on roof, installed when building the house. Two thick special order from BKK cables runs down from each lightning protection spike, each cable connected to 3 long ground rods.

Cement Thai have special roof tiles for lightning spikes, so easy to install on roof when using tiles from Cement Thai, their staff installed roof and spikes, and special electric crew experienced in lightning protection installed the cables and rods. Price (4 years ago) totalled around 35,000 baht.

Reason for installing lightning protection was, that during construction period lightning from a thunderstorm hit a high palm on the neighbouring land – of course the palm burned and died, and our workers was scared “to death” as it was a sacred palm – so I could see my 3 story house might be exposed, now the tall palm had gone…

Don’t know if it gives any protection or is worth the investment – however, have a better feeling when “Thor drives around in the dark clouds up there”, which he often does…

Furthermore I use UPS’ and various surge protections on electrical equipment, not only to protect from lightning, but rather from the ongoing voltage deviation and spikes supplied “free of charge” by the mains power provider…