The beautiful lines of the well-known poem about love for a thunderstorm do not at all have a sublime, romantic mood when it comes to a country house or a summer house. The destructive effect of this natural phenomenon can deal a crushing blow not only to property, but also to human casu alties.
Any room needs protection from a direct lightning strike or a lightning rod, as they simply used to call grounding at home. If special services are involved in this in cities and towns, then having your own home requires an independent solution of the issue.
Dacha is a separate structure, where the owner of the house takes full responsibility for the safety of both the building itself and its inhabitants. Therefore, protection from thunderstorms is another of the many problems that must be solved even before settling in a country house. How to make a lightning rod in the country with your own hands?
First, let's figure out what a lightning rod is. This is a kind of electrode that takes on the accumulated charge in ionized thunderstorm air when lightning breaks through insulatingproperties of the air and directs it into the ground, thereby removing the house from the threat of a lightning strike.
As a rule, dachas are small in size, and the most acceptable answers to the question of how to make a lightning rod in the country with your own hands are as follows: use a) pin, b) cable or c) mesh lightning protection devices. It all depends on the complexity of the roof structure and how harmoniously the lightning rod fits into the design of your roof.
To make a lightning rod in the country, you will need to build a structure from the following elements:
- Lightning rod.
- Sink.
- Grounding.
You will need steel or copper wire with a diameter of at least 6 mm. The most acceptable size is 8 mm in diameter. The wire can be galvanized or non-galvanized, in the second case, additional metal protection is required - paint, varnishes, etc. - to prevent rust formation. A single-core or stranded wire is suitable, there is no fundamental difference. The main thing when you make a lightning rod in the country with your own hands is to ensure that the total cross-sectional area of \u200b\u200bmetal structural objects is at least 50 mm.
The pin principle assumes a single lightning receiver - a rod with a welded down conductor led to the ground.
In a cable lightning rod, the lightning receiver is a wire stretched along the roof ridge, also connected to a down conductor going to the ground.
Mesh construction impliesplacement of wire on the roof surface in the form of a grid with a distance between cells of 6 m and several individual down conductors.
In practice, the combined use of several types of lightning rods is often encountered. The general rule for all is the location of the ground electrode at a distance of 5 m from the entrance to the room. Only the pin principle allows a shorter distance - up to 3 m.
When arranging a lightning rod, you need to remember that the frequency of connecting the structure (welding, soldering, bolts, etc.) directly affects the value of the network resistance. The fewer such elements, the more reliable and efficient the lightning rod will be.
The article explains how to make a lightning rod in the country with your own hands. Compliance with safety rules and creating the proper conditions for this should always be a priority in any area of human life.
