Beautiful lines of the well-known poem about the love of a thunderstorm do not at all have a sublime, romantic mood when it comes to a country house or cottage. The destructive effect of this natural phenomenon can inflict a crushing blow not only on property, but also entail human casualties.
Any room needs protection from direct lightning strikes or lightning rods, as they simply used to call the grounding of a house. If special services are involved in this in cities and towns , then having your own home requires an independent solution to the problem.
The dacha is a separate building, where the owner of the house takes over the safety of both the building itself and its inhabitants. Therefore, protection from thunderstorms of nature is another of the many problems that need to be solved before moving into a country house. How to make a lightning rod in the country with your own hands?
To begin with, we will understand what a lightning rod is. This is a kind of electrode that takes on the accumulated charge in ionized thunderous air, when lightning breaks through the insulating properties of air and directs it to the ground, thereby removing the house from the threat of lightning.
As a rule, cottages are small in size, and the most acceptable options for answering the question of how to make a lightning conductor in the cottage with your own hands are the following: 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 of the following elements:
- Lightning rod.
- Down conductor.
- Earthing switch.
A steel or copper wire with a diameter of at least 6 mm will be required. The most acceptable size is a diameter of 8 mm. The wire can be galvanized or non-galvanized, in the second case, additional metal protection - paint, varnishes, etc. - will be required to prevent the formation of rust. Single or stranded wire is suitable, there is no fundamental difference. The main thing is when you make a lightning rod in the country with your own hands, to ensure a total cross-sectional area of metal objects of construction of at least 50 mm.
The pin principle assumes a single lightning receiver - a rod with a welded down conductor brought to the ground.
In a cable lightning rod, the lightning receiver is a wire stretched along the ridge of the roof, also connecting to the down conductor going to the ground.
The mesh design involves the placement of wire on the roof surface in the form of a grid with a distance between the cells of 6 m and several individual down conductors.
In practice, the combined use of several types of lightning rods is often found. A common rule for all is the location of the ground electrode system 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 the structure connection (welding, soldering, bolts, etc.) directly affects the value of the network resistance. The fewer such elements there are, 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 the creation of appropriate conditions for this should always be a priority in any area of human life.