Advise on the fitting and testing of Lighting Protection Systems in Scotland.

Lightning protection systems are used to prevent a lightning strike from damaging a building, its stonework and its internal electrical equipment. They can prevent fires caused by electrical strikes as well as electrocution. A lightning protection system is usually a metal rod that is mounted to the top of a building that intercepts a lightning strike and transfers the electrical current down a wire and into the ground safely.

You can find out the full risk of electrical lightning strikes through a mandatory BS EN/IEC 62305 building risk assessment. The risk to a building varies and has to take into account the size of the building, its height and the number of lightning strikes that it may have to cope with in an average year.

Lightning strikes contain an enormous amount of electrical energy. And there is a very real chance of damage if a lightning bolt strikes a building. The function of an external lightning strike protection system is to intercept and disperes the power of the lightning strike safely into the earch.

At Balmore, we pride ourselves on providing a reliable design, installation and maintenance service for Lighting Protection systems fitted across the country. We pride ourselves on recommending and designing the best system to protect your building structure from the potential damage that a lightning strike can cause.

Lightning Protection Advise

We always recommend that a Building Risk Assessment be carried out and proper consultation takes place with local authorities. This is because it is important to ensure that there will be no ground-disturbance caused by lightning strikes passing into the ground.

While there are different methods/styles of lightning protection, a tower system is one of the most popular though on listed buildings, the aesthetic appearance of the lighting protection system should be taken into account.

Above all other considerations however is that a lighting protection system should only ever be installed by a qualified installer such as ourselves.

The British Standards standard BS EN 62305-3:2006 covers Lightning Protection Systems though they are excluded from the scope of BS 7671: 2008 by Regulation 110.2.

Lightning Protection Systems must be professionally tested once a year (at least) to ensure that they are capable of handling a lighting strike and safely transferring the electrical current to a safe earthing point. Lightning Protection Testing is required for compliance with the Electricity at Work Act 1989, BS6651 and BS EN 62305.

Whilst carrying out routine surveys during the course of our works, we have often discovered lightning conductor products and systems, (which are being relied upon to protect buildings and equipment from taking a direct lightning hit) are not up to standard and offer little or no protection whatsoever. Lightning protection systems should be tested annually and any necessary maintenance or upgrading works carried out as a result, to ensure continued resistance to lightning damage.

Find out more

If you would like to know more about our Lightning Protection System Installation and Scheduled Testing Services, please call us today on 0141 944 6100 or email sales@balmore-ltd.co.uk