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How Can You Protect Your Business From Lightning Damage?
Admin • Jan 03, 2018
While lightning rods are often seen as an artifact from the past, lightning protection systems are used in more businesses and homes today than at any time in history. According to safety consulting and certification company UL, lightning strikes can cause more than $1 billion in economic damages every year.
If you're not sure whether your current business is equipped with an up-to-date lightning protection system, it may be time to do some further investigation. Read on to learn more about how lightning can damage your business, how lightning protection systems work, and what you need to do to ensure your business is fully protected.
How Does Lightning Cause Damage?
Whenever lightning strikes a building without a clear path to the ground, this current can cause serious damage to both the building's structure and its electrical components. The force of the strike can tear off roofing shingles, blow apart beams, and even ignite fires. A smaller lightning strike may not cause much visible damage to your building; however, it can often be enough to fry your electrical outlets (and any electronics plugged into them).
Depending upon the force of the electrical strike, even a surge-protecting power strip might not be enough to protect your electronics. You could find that your computers, hard drives, cash registers, and even the display pads of microwaves, stoves, and other appliances have been fried, rendering all these electronics no more useful than a large paperweight. Electronic security systems can also be affected by a lightning strike, leaving your business vulnerable until you've taken steps to repair this damage.
How Do Lightning Protection Systems Work?
Assuming that the taller trees or neighboring buildings will catch lightning first, leaving your business unscathed, can be a dangerous tactic. Not only is it not guaranteed that the tallest building in an area will be the one to attract a lightning strike, lightning can often side-flash from its original strike point, hitting your building after bouncing off a tree or another building.
Lightning protection systems operate by using conductive copper and aluminum poles or strips to provide a path from the top of your building to the ground. By removing any resistance in the lightning's path, you'll be able to direct the flow of electricity to the ground without affecting your business's structure or contents.
Most lightning protection systems consist of an antenna, usually placed on the roof, designed to attract the lightning bolt to ground it quickly. However, just a single antenna won't be enough to ground a large bolt of lightning, and if you already have a television antenna, weather vane, or another roof-mounted piece of metal, it's even more important to have an adequate whole-home lightning protection system.
By adding additional grounding paths and failsafe switches, you'll be able to prevent fire and other structural damage.
In many cases, businesses that have a UL-rated lightning protection system in place can enjoy some significant discounts on their liability insurance, allowing this system to pay for itself within just a couple of years.
What Type of Lightning Protection System Does Your Business Need?
It can be tempting to try to install a lightning protection system yourself to save money. However, this is almost never a good idea; these systems are important enough and intricate enough that the risk of harm that can come from an improperly installed system is too great.
Fortunately, these systems don't need to be expensive. By shopping around and finding an installer with experience, like Michigan Lightning Protection
, you'll be able to have your lightning protection system installed quickly, without fuss, and at a price that fits within your business's budget.
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