The Installation Process
What Installation Actually Involves
From the first survey to an annual inspection — what we do, how we do it safely, and what the system looks like after it has taken a direct hit.
Step by step
From First Call to a Certified System
Most installations take a single day on site. The work that determines whether the system performs happens before anyone gets on the roof.
Free Risk Survey & Design
We walk your property, assess how lightning could reach it, and design a system around your roof and architecture — at no charge. You get a plan before you get a price.
Ground Testing
Before anything goes on the roof, we measure what is under it. Florida sand is a poor conductor, so we test soil resistivity and design the earthing system around the result.
Installation
Licensed electricians and certified installers fit the air terminal, down conductors, grounding, and surge protection to HBP-21 Level II — typically with no more than two roof penetrations.
Certification & Inspection
We document the installation, register it with the manufacturer, and inspect it annually — because strike damage is not something you can see from the ground.
Safety
The Safety Measures We Follow
Some of these protect your home. Some protect the people who have to work on your roof years from now. All of them are reasons to ask an installer how they work before you hire them.
Licensed electricians on every job
Not every lightning protection installer is a licensed electrician. We are a Florida Certified Electrical Contractor and a UL Listed installer, so design and installation stay under one roof.
Permission before roof access
Nobody goes onto your roof without asking first. If we spot a problem on a system we installed, we knock on the door and explain what we have seen before we touch anything.
Minimal roof penetrations
A conventional system needs a multitude of holes through your roof. Ours generally needs no more than two — every hole avoided is a leak that cannot happen.
No field of sharp rods
A Faraday installation leaves dozens of needle-sharp air terminals across your roof, which is a genuine hazard for anyone who has to work up there later. One terminal removes that risk.
Single-point grounding
Every component ties into one low-impedance earth network of 10 ohms or less. Separate grounds create voltage differences between them, and that difference is what destroys electronics.
Annual inspection and replacement
We inspect systems yearly and after major strikes, and replace damaged components under the manufacturer's warranty. A terminal that has taken a hit can look fine from the driveway.
Proof from the field
What Happens When Lightning Actually Strikes
This is what a lightning protection system looks like after it has done its job. One of our technicians spotted a damaged air terminal from the street during a routine drive-by, went up to inspect it, and found a terminal that had taken a strike big enough to blow its sphere in half. In three minutes you will see exactly what a direct strike does, why the damage is invisible from the ground, and why we inspect systems every year.
ESE Air Terminal Saves Florida Home Struck by Lightning
“This type of strike that occurred to this, without the system, would have certainly burned the house to the ground.”
Read the transcript
I'm John Barber with Windemuller Technical Services. We're here at a residence in Sarasota that I drove by the other day and noticed that something was wrong with a Lightning Preventor.
What I normally do as I drive around the city is look up at our existing Lightning Preventor installations, just to give a kind of pre-inspection of the lightning rod. If I find something that doesn't look right, I'll contact the homeowner to let them know that it needs to be inspected. In this instance, from down the street, I could see that something didn't look right with the Preventor. So I knocked on the door, told the homeowner something looked wrong, and asked if I could come up and inspect it.
What I found up here was unbelievable. The Lightning Preventor system had taken such a large strike that it actually damaged the air terminal. The manufacturer warrants it for five years, so what I told her was that I would take the system down and replace it with a new system.
Once I got up here and took the air terminal down, it was evident that the system had been struck repeatedly, and also by a large lightning strike. The proof is in the pudding when I show you this air terminal. You can see that the air terminal not only works, but the amount of strike that occurred to it — we have damage to the point. The point is blunted; this is normally as sharp as a needle. The ball is completely blown in half, and it actually shows arc marks on the side of the pan around it.
So you can see what this looks like after a large high-voltage event. This type of strike that occurred to this, without the system, would have certainly burned the house to the ground. This is what we call a catastrophic event.
Now, replacing it with a new air terminal, you can see the differences between the two. The point is as sharp as a needle, the ball is intact, and it's a complete round sphere. So what I'm going to do is replace this air terminal with a brand new one.
We want to make sure that this system is performing at 100% all the time, and that's why we do these inspections. I just happened to catch it before the homeowner called me, because this strike actually occurred about six or eight months ago. The homeowner knew it got struck, but she didn't know the system was actually damaged until I came and inspected it. So now the homeowner can rest assured that they have complete, 100% protection the whole time.
After installation
Why We Inspect Every Year
The homeowner in that video knew her house had been struck. What she could not know — because you cannot see it from the ground — was that the terminal had taken enough damage to need replacing. It had been that way for six or eight months.
A lightning protection system is not a thing you install and forget. We inspect systems annually and after major strikes, verify the grounding with low-resistance testing, and replace damaged components under the manufacturer’s warranty — so the protection you paid for is still the protection you have.
Ready to see what your home needs?
Get a free risk assessment and system design consultation — no obligation. We've protected Florida homes and businesses since 1985.
Or schedule a free consultation — we'll come to you.