How to Make Your House Lightning-Proof in 2025: A SPIN Case Study
In a picturesque region between the sea and mountains, the White House—a 100m² four-story home standing 16-18m tall—has faced a relentless enemy: lightning. With a stunning rooftop offering panoramic views, this idyllic setting has been marred by repeated strikes, causing structural damage and electrical failures.
In 2023 alone, the solar tank was directly hit, leaving burn marks and a leaking system, while a rear metal fence connected to the house’s steel structure suffered severe corrosion.
LPS Pacifica stepped in to make the White House lightning-proof with SPIN Lightning Protector, The Nikola Tesla lightning protector designed to prevent strikes rather than fueling it.
Recurring Lightning Issues in a Da Nang Residential Neighborhood: The White House Story
In a Da Nang residential neighborhood nestled between the sea and mountains, lightning strikes are a relentless threat due to the area’s exposed geography. The White House, a 100m² four-story home standing 16-18m tall, boasts a stunning rooftop with panoramic views of Da Nang, the mountains, and the sea.
However, its idyllic setting is marred by the scars of lightning. Just a few meters from its facade, a lightning-struck, dead tree—used to anchor electrical cables—stands as a grim reminder of the area’s vulnerability.
Despite lacking a Franklin rod or ESE system, the White House has not been spared. In 2023, it was directly struck on its solar tank, leaving visible damage: burn marks and blisters on the stainless steel tank, along with a scorched power cable.
Additionally, the house was struck at the rear, directly hitting a metal fence fixed to the steel reinforcements (rebar) of the structure, causing severe corrosion and heat damage to the rebar. The solar tank strike caused significant issues—the temperature sensor failed, a seal melted, leading to a leaking tank, and the heat could have sparked a fire. That same year, the tenant reported the loss of several electrical devices, including fans and the motherboard of an 18-month-old MacBook Studio.
The White House has likely been struck multiple times and, without intervention, will continue to be regularly impacted in the future.
Unprotected by Franklin: The Ongoing Lightning Damage in Da Nang’s Residential Areas
Year after year, lightning devastates the landscape between the sea and mountains of Da Nang, Vietnam, a region where storms relentlessly strike inland. Towering trees that once provided summer shade vanish one by one, felled by tempest after tempest.
In this ravaged area, hundreds of traditional lightning protection systems—Franklin-rods and ESE systems—dot houses, buildings, power poles, telecom antennas, and public structures, all installed as per international standards. Yet, the damages remain staggering: costly repairs, endless maintenance, and the near-impossible task of growing a tree for over 20 years without it being struck.
The White House in Da Nang is far from an isolated case—its plight reflects a neighborhood-wide crisis. Almost every tall tree in the area has been struck by lightning, some clinging to life with scorched, stripped bark, while others stand dead, their roots surrounded by homes with Franklin rods or ESE systems.
Just 30 meters away, a neighboring building dubbed ‘The Blinking House’—a tall structure equipped with a Franklin rod—was struck in April 2023. The impact caused the lights on the top floor, likely part of a surveillance or alarm system, to blink rapidly for hours, accompanied by eerie whistling sounds. Unoccupied at the time, the house endured this issue for months, with technicians repeatedly attempting repairs, possibly replacing the system’s electronic boards.
‘The Blinking House’ in Da Nang, equipped with a Franklin rod and struck by lightning in 2023, showing rapid light blinking and risks of short-circuit
The incident highlights a critical flaw: traditional capture systems like Franklin rods not only increase strike probability by creating ionization and streamers but also fail to mitigate damage. Dissipating lightning energy in a ‘safe and controlled’ manner is simply not feasible, leading to inevitable damage—whether it’s short circuits, fires, or the loss of trees, as seen with the absence of tall trees in front of this house.
The Challenge: Making the White House Lightning-Proof Using Tesla’s Method
How can we prevent lightning strikes, reduce exposure, and make a house truly lightning-proof? Traditional systems like Franklin rods and ESE attract lightning, increasing strike probability through ionization, corona effects, and streamers, while failing to safely manage the energy, leading to inevitable damage.
LPS Pacifica took a different approach, inspired by Nikola Tesla’s principles, to develop SPIN Lightning Protector—a solution designed to block lightning strikes rather than attract them. Our strategy focuses on prevention: SPIN minimizes charge leakage by reducing corona effects and streamers, increases resistance to electrical arcs, and makes the air around the house less conductive, effectively lowering exposure to lightning.
To protect the facade of the White House in Da Nang, we installed two SPIN protectors at the highest points, ensuring coverage for both the house’s front and the trees below in the street.
Grounding Made Simple: Connections and Design for Efficiency
The SPIN grounding system offers an economical, practical, and eco-friendly solution. Using a continuous 16mm² copper cable from the protectors to the ground—without cuts, control joints, or lightning counters—this lightweight setup is quick and easy to install. Buried just 20cm deep in fertile soil with plants, it avoids deep electrodes and chemical additives, relying on natural conductivity to safely balance charges, ensuring minimal environmental impact while maintaining high efficiency.
Is that all? Will these two Tesla-inspired SPIN protectors be enough to prevent lightning strikes on the White House? Not quite. These two units effectively shield the facade and the street below, the easiest parts of the house to protect. However, much remains to be done to make this house truly lightning-proof. Let’s examine the rear of the house to identify how we can strengthen our lightning shield.
Protecting the White House: Next Steps
Practical Tricks to Lower Your Lightning Risk
Metal fences and sharp-edged structures can significantly increase your lightning risk, acting as unintended lightning rods. At the White House, the solar tank on the rooftop was initially fitted with a sharp-edged steel rod to secure a plastic pipe, behaving exactly like a Franklin rod by creating excessive ionization and streamers—conditions that attract lightning strikes, which we aim to avoid. Steel, being a ferromagnetic metal, reacts to the inductive fields generated by storm clouds. At heights like the 18m rooftop, sharp steel edges respond to surrounding electromagnetic pulses, ionizing the air and creating conductive pathways that make lightning strikes more likely. We replaced the steel rod with bamboo, a poor electrical conductor, to perform the same function without the risk. This simple reflex can prevent a lightning strike, though we also plan to install a SPIN protector to fully safeguard the tanks.
Similarly, the rear metal fence—made of sharp-edged angle irons and connected to the house’s steel structure via rebar—heightened the risk. We dismantled it, as it served no real purpose, drastically reducing charge leakage. Two additional SPIN units will soon be installed to protect the rear, completing the lightning-proof shield.
The installation at the White House is ongoing, with more SPIN units to be added for complete protection. Photos of the final setup will be updated on this page at the project’s conclusion—to be continued! Do you also face lightning issues in your neighborhood? Are you interested in SPIN Lightning Protectors? Don’t hesitate to contact us, and we’ll help you make your house lightning-proof.
Frequently Asked Questions About Lightning Protection
Do Trees Attract Lightning?
People often think trees are responsible for lightning strikes, as we’re frequently told, ‘Don’t stay under trees during a storm!’ If a tree stands alone in the middle of a field, its height indeed makes it a prime target for lightning, significantly increasing the risk of a strike. However, in urban environments like the White House neighborhood in Da Nang, where trees are surrounded by electrical lines, steel telecommunication towers, buildings three times their height, and dozens of lightning capture systems like Franklin rods or ESE, the tree itself isn’t the primary trigger for lightning. Instead, these capture systems ionize the air, heightening the overall strike risk in the area, as shown in our case study, where nearby Franklin systems worsened the situation by increasing strike frequency.
Why Are Trees So Often Struck by Lightning?
Trees provide an excellent grounding path due to their root systems and the vibrant ecosystem of animals and insects around them, which enrich the soil and create a low-resistance path for lightning discharges. Each strike generates intense heat, burning the soil, forming fulgurites (small fused material stones), and destroying the ecosystem that had developed around the tree. Repeated strikes in and around the tree tend to ‘vitrify’ the soil, increasing its resistivity, reducing fertility, and diminishing the ability of vegetation to regrow, as observed in the White House neighborhood in Da Nang.
How to Recognize If a Tree Has Been Struck by Lightning?
To recognize if a tree has been struck by lightning, start by spending more time walking around your neighborhood and observing tree trunks. Struck trees often show black streaks along their trunks and branches, missing or fractured bark, and in cases of severe ‘superbolt’ strikes, the damage is immediately obvious. You may also notice ‘hotspots’ where nearly all trees are impacted, as some areas experience more frequent strikes. Trees that have been struck are often weakened, prone to diseases, fungi, and stunted growth. Near the White House in Da Nang, we’ve seen trees with burnt trunks or completely dead after strikes. If you suspect an impact, inspect the tree and consider a SPIN Lightning Protector to prevent further damage.
What Are the Risks of Lightning for a House?
Lightning can cause fires, structural damage, and surges that destroy electronics like TVs, computers, cameras, sensors, and alarm systems. At the White House in Da Nang, lightning struck the solar tank, causing leaks and electrical failures. In a direct strike, additional protections like Surge Protection Devices (SPDs) cannot fully safeguard electrical equipment. The damage depends on the strike’s intensity, but the passage of lightning current also generates intense electromagnetic pulses around the installation, capable of destroying nearby electronic devices.
Why Do Traditional Lightning Rods Like Franklin Often Fail?
In controlled, static lab tests, Franklin rods and ESE systems are effective at capturing electrical discharges. However, in real-world dynamic conditions—rain, wind, and varied configurations—their ability to intercept lightning is very low. Their pointed design makes the surrounding air conductive, increasing strike risk across the area. Even when they capture lightning, dissipating such immense energy without causing damage is nearly impossible. Lightning is a powerful event, far beyond domestic electricity, as seen in the White House neighborhood in Da Nang, where these systems failed to protect trees or homes.
How Does the SPIN Lightning Protector Protect My House from Lightning?
The SPIN Lightning Protector, inspired by Nikola Tesla’s principles, blocks strikes by reducing streamers and ionization. Installed on the White House in Da Nang, its large dome absorbs surrounding charges, smoothing out voltage spikes and draining electrical charges to the ground, making the air around the house less conductive and drastically lowering the probability of a lightning strike.
What Makes the White House in Da Nang So Vulnerable to Lightning?
Located between the sea and mountains in Da Nang, the White House (100m², 16-18m tall) is exposed due to its height and rooftop, which featured numerous steel structures, metal rods, and sharp-edged fences. Additionally, the house is situated in a ‘Franklin Zone,’ with dozens of lightning capture systems nearby. The more capture systems in an area, the higher the strike frequency, significantly increasing the lightning risk.
How Can I Reduce My House’s Exposure to Lightning?
If you live in a lightning-prone area, avoid installing lightning capture systems on your house. While intercepting lightning is possible under certain conditions, safely managing currents between 30,000 and 300,000 amperes without incidents is highly ambitious—know that just 1 ampere can be fatal to a human. Avoid lightning capture systems and sharp-edged metal structures (like steel rods, masts, or fences) that attract lightning. At the White House, we replaced a steel rod with bamboo and removed a metal fence. Install a SPIN Lightning Protector for preventive protection.