Lightning Rods

Lightning Rods Are Proven Effective

Lightning strikes American soil 30 million to 50 million times each year. During our studies, we have examined the protection offered by lightning rods although GE does not make or sell lightning rods. We have studied their operation in detail and are convinced of their effectiveness when properly installed.

How Lightning Rods Work


The principle is simple: quality lightning rods are made of material that conducts electricity easily. A lightning rod works by receiving the stroke and discharging it quickly and harmlessly to conducting earth. Lightning rods are so effective in conducting the stroke to the ground, occupants in the protected building are often unaware that the building has been struck.


Less obtrusive than traditional mounts, today’s affordable lightning rods can be mounted on a chimney.


Affordable lightning rod protection inserted through your roof to cover the mounting


Special cables are used to conduct high voltage electricity from the house to conducting earth.

A lightning bolt generates heat up to 15,000 °C. This heat often ignites a large area instantly. The voltage in an ordinary electrical system using two wires is 110 volts. If your building uses electric machines it generally has an electrical entrance with three wires and your electric motors are generally using 220 volts. If you are using such things as electric ovens, you may be using up to 440 volts. In comparison, the power of a bolt of lightning has been measured above 50,000,000 volts.That is 200,000 times more power than the voltage in your electrical system. If you have ever been around a building where 40 or 50 cows have been killed standing in a metal-clad building, you will have a realization of the immense power that a lightning bolt delivers.

A single lightning bolt has been measured above 3,750 million kilowatts. When such power is generated in .003 fractions of a second, you can understand why a metal building has been found by the insurance companies that insure thousands of metal-clad grain elevators on a mass scale, that such metal-clad structures do not cope with a lightning bolt until they are equipped with an underwriters approved certified lightning protection system.

When the air terminals are left off a lightning protection system, the action is to attempt to conduct this huge power that is present in a lightning bolt. When the air terminals are in use, the action is to dissipate the static load and to keep it from accumulating a sufficient body to create a lightning discharge.