S
trike termination devices, also known as Franklin rods
and air terminals, are familiar sights atop barns, public
buildings, and even some residences. The tapered,
⅜-inch-diameter copper or other metal rods are a foot or so
tall, interconnected and grounded. When properly positioned
and installed, they comprise the business end of a lightning
protection system. Connected to a robust copper grounding
system, as they must be, they have saved many a structure,
directing lightning energy harmlessly down to earth. Mount Ararat is a contemporary community-oriented church
whose architecture combines traditional worship space with an
assortment of classrooms, meeting rooms and offices, plus youth,
recreational and athletic facilities. Its two principal buildings are
well protected by Code-approved fire and safety systems and
equipment, much of which is computer controlled or monitored.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of other pointed rooftop
structures that aren’t always protected properly, if at all. Worse
yet, they may be several dozen feet tall, making them very
attractive lightning targets. They’re steeples, of course, and their
vulnerability generates millions of dollars in lightning-related
damage annually. “The church started in 1907, and there have been lots of
tear-downs and additions over the years,” he explains. “We’re
currently a little shy of 100,000 square feet total in two
buildings. The older section was built in 1957 and the newer
section went up in 2009.
Why would anyone not protect such an obvious lightning target,
especially on a church? Mainly, it’s ill-founded complacency;
churches that have never seen a serious lightning incident
tend to adopt the mistaken assumption that their spires are
adequately protected and grounded. A good example is the
Richmond, Virginia church described later in this case study. It
had survived since 1905 without a single recorded “hit” before
disaster struck.
Daniel Lutsky, Mount Ararat’s facilities manager, knows the
complex well and understands the lightning-based problems it
faced as well as anyone.
“I started working at Mount Ararat three-and-a-half years ago,
and we were having lightning-related electrical surge problems
from the day I got here. Finally, in 2013, the older building itself
got hit, and it got hit in a big way. The strike by-passed the short
steeple in favor of a nearby chimney (Figure 2). Lightning is just
gonna go where it wants to go!
In other cases, there’s the understandable aesthetic reluctance
to mount air terminals near religious symbols atop a steeple, or
even expose down-conductor cables at all.
The good news here is that safety and fire-avoidance issues can
be addressed successfully by today’s standards-based lightning
protection practices. Aesthetic considerations in particular are
routinely dealt with by skilled, certified installers.
Here are two examples:
A Baptist Church’s History of Electrical Problems
The Mount Ararat Baptist Church complex in Stafford, Virginia
occupies a multi-acre site containing roads and parking lots,
walkways, and even a small cemetery. The church’s two-story
construction stands out prominently, but that, unfortunately,
increases its vulnerability to lightning (Figure 1).
Figure 2. The 2013 lightning strike destroyed a chimney on the
“old” structure that stood to the left of the short belfry. From
there, it entered the complex via telephone lines, severely damaging
or destroying $100,000 worth of HVAC equipment, an elevator,
computers, telephone equipment and important safety devices.
Several of the new lightning protection system’s rooftop air
terminals and their ground conductor connection can be seen in the
foreground on the “new” structure’s parapet.
“We lost about $100,000 worth of equipment in that single
strike, including the chimney — there were bricks blown
everywhere! — and all kinds of HVAC equipment and controls,
one of our passenger elevators, all of our computers and
telephones, and a lot of life-safety stuff. We just recently
found out that a fire light pull-down station was damaged. It’s
not a device that ordinarily goes bad. We also lost the mini-
annunciators that we have all throughout the building. That was
rather costly.
Figure 1. The “new” structure at the Mount Ararat Baptist Church
complex stands out prominently among parking lots and roads on
the church’s large lot, making it especially vulnerable to lightning
strikes. Two towers on the structure, one shown at center, were
found to be inadequately grounded.
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Bringing in a certified installer
“I certainly didn’t know much about lightning at the time,
and I wanted the repairs to be done right. The Loehr Lightning
Protection Company had installed the lightning rods on the