Lightning Protection

[Snoxxi]

Hey all,

 

so last weekend our building got hit by a lightning strike and it actually roasted a few of my devices (rip). Now I thought about getting a power strip with lightning protection to have a chance to avoid that in the future.

I'm just not too sure if that could help in some way if the building itself might not be protected enough against lightning strikes.

Does anybody something about that?

 

Thanks.

[Dujith]

The first thing you will need to check is if the earthing is up to code. No amount of surge protectors will help you if the earth resistance is too high,

or no earthing at al. (old buildings that only use the water pipes as earthing)

Think it of a flood gate that will funnel the extra power away. If there is no way out then it will reach you devices anyway.

 

That also means those power surge protection devices will only be able to work in a grounded socket.

Ideally you'll want to have surge protectors right at the beginning at the fuses. But if thats not possible then make sure to use grounded sockets.

 

Your building can be "protected" from lightning, that would require lightning rods on the roof. You should be able to see it there are any.

 

Having said all that. There is no 100% protection from lightning, its so powerful it can still damage even with power surges and such in place. 

The only 100% way is to disconnect everything when a lightning storm comes to you.

[Tarbot]

We use this company for our retail customers...  No issues yet over many years.   I have in my house to protect everything...  https://www.l-com.com/surge-protector

[Tarbot]

Gas tube is the best, quickest to mitigate.  Nothing is perfect though...

 

[Snoxxi]

Thanks. Well I have to ask my landlord about the actual grounding of the building but i seemed like its quite good I guess? because the only things that got roasted were some ceiling lamps which are obviously not connected to any wall plug and my Router, but I think that got killed because the surge happened in the DSL line. I think the rest of my rack actually survived.

I saw some RJ45 surge protectors online. Could that help in any way?

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Cases and Power Supplies

[akio123008]

Problem with this kind of stuff is the unpredictability. The only way to be kind of sure is with ligthning rods on the roof or by unplugging devices during storms.