Lightning protection?

I don't know if that's even possible. Lightning is big-time energy. The only thing I do is unplug.

I think the only worries you have is if you get hit while outside the trailer. The trailer should shunt any strike through the aluminum frame and through the tires to the ground. If you're inside, and not touching any wall or metal framework, you should be good. IMO anyway.

I have my AM/FM antenna up there as a lightning rod.
Radio should absorb the hit just fine with a direct strike. ;)

I'll avoid sarcasm in this reply -- lightning scares the hell out of me.

Lightning rods are the answer. And many people make a huge mistake thinking whatever rod they choose has to take the full brunt of a lightning strike.

A foot square rod of solid silver couldn't pass that much wattage.

A lightning rod aids in creating a path for pre-srike ionization. The bolt usually follows the ionization.

A pair of galvanized 1/2" pipe is stout enough to take wind loading. At the tip weld together a tip with six inch extensions. A spike if you will.

Base prep is to use aluminum wire six feet long arrayed away from the rig, buried a foot deep in soil which is not too hard to keep moist. Clamp the wires to the post but use a gob of grease to stop galvanic destruction.

DISCONNECT UTTERLY both line voltage and neutral hookup power during a lightning event. Pull the rig's plug from the shore power...

My casita is in an extremely dangerous lightning prone area of the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Several strikes have killed fishermen out in their boats and there have been beach deaths and inland deaths. Everyone takes lightning seriously. Around 2006, a bolt cleaved a ten feet at the base diameter parota tree alongside the highway. It serves as a grim reminder every trip to town.

If there is a hill or structure of any kind near you you can forget about the lightning rods. Every summer storm we get there is at least one simultaneous light and sound strike. Some of my chickens die every summer of fright. Not at all funny.

First I will say that I do respect lightning and stay indoors if any is near by. But I have been reading RV.net and other RV forums for over ten years and have never read a post about anyone reporting their RV hit by lightning, or anyone hearing of anyone else's RV getting hit by lightning. Power surge? Yes. Direct hit? No. Too many other things to be concerned with to worry about putting lightning rods on your RV.

Absolutely nothing will protect your RV from a direct strike.
If you get caught in a storm, unplug your rig and stay inside IF it has metal walls.
The safest place you could go is inside your vehicle. If lightening strikes it the energy will flow around the metal body and jump to earth.

time2roll wrote:
I have my AM/FM antenna up there as a lightning rod.
Radio should absorb the hit just fine with a direct strike. ;)

I hope you are jesting. Lightning hits your AM/FM antenna, your radio and every electric/electronic thing in your rig will almost certainly get fried, and you'll be lucky indeed if half those things don't catch fire into the bargain. May you never get hit.

My various houses have been hit four or five times. None of the times while I was inside. It blew concrete off the roof and scorched paint and exposed rebar. The most damaging hit scabbed a two by four feet area and melted one inch off a rebar cross brace. About two and a half inches deep.

Being the power was off at the time, it lessened damage to mere structural except for an utterly fried and melted structure to earth 6 gauge ground rod cable.

I heard but did not see the strike as I was beneath a palm frond roof of my kid's beach restaurant. The goat lady living at the bottom of the arroyo told me she saw the flash then she had to go chase down her goats.

Repair amounted to a sack of cement, sand, ground onyx and sealer. Quicksilver's roof is at the floor level of the concrete patio.

Average dry summer thunderstorm - can count on 20-30 recycling of line reclosers on the 86KV line. Unlike the USA Mexico has sub distribution networks where a 20 Kw transformer may deliver power to ten or 15 homes. Luckily they are three phases plus neutral WYE transformers.

Absolutely the only lightning direct strike protection a person can do to a service drop is to make some alternate pathways and pray a feeder stroke elects to take it instead of continuing on into a breaker box.

Fully unplugging everything you value from receptacles beats switching off the master at the main breaker as far as protection goes.

Neutral must be isolated every bit as much as the hot phase wiring.

Ugh I hate lightning.

naturist wrote:

time2roll wrote:
Radio should absorb the hit just fine with a direct strike. ;)

I hope you are jesting.

Yah, I'd say the winky wink indicates that.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
I'll avoid sarcasm in this reply -- lightning scares the hell out of me.

Lightning rods are the answer. And many people make a huge mistake thinking whatever rod they choose has to take the full brunt of a lightning strike.

A foot square rod of solid silver couldn't pass that much wattage. {SNIP}

Yeah, but who can afford a 1 foot square by 20 foot long solid silver anything? (It would need to be pounded into the ground as far as possible AND still stick up over the RV. The interested student can do the math calculating the volume, mass, and thereby cost of that silver rod.

On the basis of the rest of your very well explained post, I'd suggest standard 8 foot ground rod from Lowes or Home Depot at the base of a 10 foot (or longer, so it sticks up above the RV) piece of electrical conduit. Total cost maybe $20.