a ref to lightning conductors

[lob]

a few moons ago a question was asked in construction forum along the lines of did the lad need a lightning conductor on his house. a salesman quickly tried to sell his rod, not knowing fuck all about lightning, well here is a site that mentions what a conductor does, stick with it as the intro is a cartoonish thingy. when the engineer gets to the flower pods they mention what they do. sit back and enjoy.

http://www.liveleak.com/e/07b_1284580365

[Mid]

whatever they get paid .........................

it ain't enough .

[superman]

It made my nuts tingle watching that.

[Moonraker]

I've seen that before an can't bring myself to watch it again.

I would definitely be sacked if that was my job.

[hopskimoet]

I like this little gem about lightening conductors from Asimov.

"The most practical and dramatic victory of science over religion occurred in the seventeenth century, when churches began to put up lightning conductors." - Isaac Asimov

[Happyman]

How about this then ?
A new hotel was being built in Kata by a large European hotel chain and in line with their company policy the lightning conductor was designed by Furze ( the biggest and best in Europe for this sort of thing )

An insurance claim dropped on my desk- the hotel was going to open in a week but they had a lightning strike that had knocked out all their computers, CCTV system, telephone switchboard and fire alarms !

Problem was the installation of the conductor system had been contracted out to a local Thai company. The main earthing connection should have been in an isulated conduit down to ground level from the first floor but they strung it between two poles and down to the big earthing rod.

Some enterprising Somchai had stolen the exposed copper cable - 30 meters of 60 x 25mm woven braid strapping and probably got a couple of thousand baht for it !!!

During the repairs another thing came to light .
As it was a Furze designed system I decided that as long as the rest of the system was repaired to Spec. they could re-use the original earthing rod.
Upon inspection however I noted it was RUSTY !!
Withdrew it and instead of a 2m long X50mm dia copper rod it was a mild steel rod copper plated .

Thai shortcut and save money struck again !