Lightning protection of a private house - views, its parts and installation rules

The article describes what a lightning protection of a private house is, what types of structures should be used to guarantee the safety of buildings. You will also learn about the simple technology of building a lightning protection system. Having understood the material, you will understand what exactly and why do the masters who install lightning protection.

Kinds of lightning protection

You shouldn’t recall that lightning This is a high power electrical discharge. So, this is a big danger to people and their property. So that you understand what it is about, look at the photo below, which shows what happened to an unprotected house after being hit by lightning.

Therefore, lightning protection at home is an indispensable element that will save him and the people living in it from harm. If we consider this construction in purely technical terms, then this is a common antenna that takes an electrical discharge on itself, and leads it through the wire to the ground. In this case, the antenna is not necessarily made in the form of a pin directed toward the sky. It can be a grid laid on the slopes of the roof or a strained wire along the ridge.

It is this lightning protection that has always been used, and today is used, as a simple variant of leading lightning. Call it passive. Today it offers an improved version of lightning protection, called active.

The main difference between active protection in the presence of a special device - an air terminal. In fact, it is an ionizer that attracts lightning. That is, its installation ensures that the lightning will not get anywhere except the lightning rod. This is an important point, because the impact of natural electricity can occur not only in the roof of the house, but also in the power wiring of household appliances and lighting. With a system in which an air-terminal is installed, this will not happen.

However, properly made passive protection also provides an adequate level of security and still remains traditional and often used.

On our website you can find contacts of construction companies that offer the service of developing and installing any electrical networks for a private house. Directly to communicate with representatives, you can visit the exhibition of houses "Low-rise Country".

Lightning protection components

The lightning protection device is three parts of the same design:

• receiver;

• output circuit;

• ground loop.

Lightning receiver

It is made of a metal rod with a diameter of at least 6 mm. As mentioned above, there are different design options for the receiver.

1. Pin protruding upward. Its length varies from 20 cm to 2 m. The main requirement is the installation at the highest point of the roof. This may be a ridge, a sticking pipe (chimney, ventilation, etc.), a television antenna.

2. Wire , and even better - steel cable with a diameter of at least 6 mm. Tighten the cable along the edges of the roof: the ridge, the joints between the slopes of the roller roof, endova. The main requirement is to position the cable so that it does not touch the roofing material, and to pull it between two dielectric supports, for example, between wooden bars.

3. Grid . In fact, it is a wire laid in the form of a grid with a pitch of 1-1.5 m. It is rarely used in private housing construction. Only if the roof area is large enough. Optimally - to use on flat roof structures.

On our site you can see the most popular house designs from construction companies represented at the exhibition "Low-Rise Country".

Discharge circuit (current lead)

This is an intermediate element along which the electrical discharge moves into the ground. It is also made of metal wire with a diameter of at least 6 mm. On the one hand, it connects to the air terminal, on the other hand, it is grounded. Connection method - electric or bolts. At the same time it is important to clean and paint the joint, because it is under the open sky, which means it is exposed to natural loads, therefore it will quickly rust and cease to be a conductor. If bolted connections are used, they are coated with a special protective lubricant.

It is important - it is necessary to lay the outlet contour along the minimum distance. The gasket line must be straight with a minimum number of bends and bends. As practice shows, the points of ignition appear on the curved sections.

Ground loop

Grounding device in the lightning protection device in a private house contour is the most vulnerable in terms of corrosion of metals. It is located in the ground, all the more, all the time it is subjected to electrical discharges.Therefore, it is made of either copper profiles or alloyed steel.

Although it should be noted that for all elements conductors of different section and material are used. The table below shows the ratio of the parts of the lightning protection with the cross section of the conductors used. The inner filling of the table is the cross section of the wire.

It can be interesting! In the article on the following link read about electrical wiring in a wooden house.

Rules for the installation of lightning protection

Installing the pin to the highest point of the roof is easy. The main task of the manufacturer of work - to hold a strong mount by any means.

As for the tensioned cable or wire laid in the form of a lattice, special fasteners are used here, which are made specifically for the lightning protection system. They are directly attached to the roofing material with self-tapping screws, and the wire is passed through special clamps or clamps, which are an integral part of these fasteners.

Now about the installation of the current lead. It is laid on the shortest distance. And attached to the roof and to the walls of the same fasteners. It should be noted that the fixtures to the wall is not different from roofing.

There are several requirements that relate to the installation site of the discharge circuit.

1. It should be mounted on walls, near which there are no walkways : alleys, tracks, driveways, and so on. The farther from people, the better.

2. The distance from the lead-through wire to the windows and doors of the house must not be less than half a meter . But the further, the safer.

3. Current-carrying circuits may be more than one . At the same time, the distance between adjacent ones should not be less than 10 m.

Installation grounding circuit

In the lightning protection device of a private house, grounding is the most difficult part in terms of its installation. Rather stringent requirements are imposed on it in terms of the parameters and location of elements driven into the ground.

1. The resistance of the conductor must not exceed 10 ohms.

2. Length pins up to 3 m.

3. The distance between the pins is: 2.2xL where "L" is the length of the pin.

4. It is not necessary to drive pins into one hole and tie them together. It is possible to drive the grounding element near each deflector pulled from the roof by attaching the first to it. Just to increase the efficiency of the ground loop, it is recommended that the pins hammered into different places be connected to each other with a steel strip.

It should be noted that the earthing of the roof from corrugated roofing or any other roofing material is carried out using the same technology. You can use different conductors, different fasteners, but the layout of the elements of lightning protection is always the same, because the requirements for this system are the same.

It might be interesting! In the article on the following link, read about grounding in private house.

Useful tips

Let’s point out a few recommendations from specialists who will improve the work of lightning protection and prolong its service life.

1. If the grounding circuit is assembled from ordinary steel conductors , then it is necessary to periodically check it (once every 5 years) for corrosion. This is especially true of welding.

2. If a lightning protection of a private house with a roof made of metal tile, profiled or other metal coating is going to be used, then you need to use dielectric devices as fasteners to the roofing material. Or separate the metal mounts from the roof with plastic or wooden linings.

3. If the current lead is conducted along the wall of a wooden house, then for its mounting it is necessary to use brackets (clamps) with a length of at least 30 cm .

4. Armature with a diameter of at least 18 mm , angle of at least 32x32 mm, pipes with a minimum diameter of 32 mm and a wall thickness of 3.5 mm are used as grounding pins. . Piping strip: width 50, thickness 3 mm.

About the basic concepts of lightning protection in a video:

It might be interesting! In the article on the following link read about the house-crystal in the forest of Lanceville.

Conclusion on the topic

After the lightning protection on the house is installed, we can say that the construction is completed. You can not neglect this seemingly simple system. It will protect the house from lightning in a thunderstorm, and will certainly save people's lives.

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