“April showers bring May flowers” so the old saying goes. And with those showers, inevitably comes thunder and lightning. Thunder and lightning storms are exciting to watch. It is nature at its most entertaining form. As a child I used to guess how close a lightning strike was by counting off the seconds from flash from the strike to the boom of the thunder. I used the five seconds per mile rule. I saw a big tree that was hit by lightning and marveled at its power as it was blasted apart.
Each year thousands are killed by lightning and many more are hit and survive. People don’t do well when struck by lightning but what about landscape lightning? A couple of years ago a customer’s home was hit by lightning. Several electronics items such as his big screen TV were ruined. His lights didn’t work. I feared the worst. I thought that his quartz halogen bulbs were fried. When I opened the transformer I noted that the circuit breakers had tripped. I reset them and presto – all his lights worked fine. The customer and I were both elated!
This summer one of my customers in Carmel called and told me that they had been the victims of a lightning strike. It was a bad one. Their computer, televisions and even the thermostat were destroyed. They told me that the LED lights I installed three years ago weren’t working. I reflected back on my previous experience and hoped that the result would be the same. I was wrong. We tested each fixture and the results were enlightening. One fixture even had the insulation burned off the connecting wire.
Out of the 45 fixtures connected to four transformers, 36 were destroyed with nine still serviceable. The transformers and digital timers were fine and I was glad that they did not need to be replaced. Just as I was impressed with how powerful lightning can be on a huge oak tree, I was again awe struck by what this force of nature can do to landscape lighting.
I found that most of the lights that survived were in one area of the yard. The ones wired to the other three transformers didn’t fare so well. Why it was this way I am not sure – lightning can be strange. It is dangerous. From this experience I learned that lightning is no friend to LED landscape lights, and that it is important to have homeowners insurance in the event of unexpected disasters.
