# Lightning Rods

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lightning-rods/713662>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [February 26, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lightning-rods/713662 "2015-02-26T14:53:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lightning-rods/713662/1 "2015-02-26T14:53:05Z")

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ref: [Do-lightning-rods-really-work](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2286/do-lightning-rods-really-work)

Realizing I am responding to a classic, and maybe a zombie thread, my father owned a static generator which had belonged to a traveling lightning rod salesman.

It had a set of houses of various sorts which would demonstrate the dangers of lightning, and why you NEEDED a lightning rod on your house / barn / shed / whatever. One had metal gutters and a little figure of a man reaching to clean them out, one caught fire, and so on. The machine itself would throw a spark a foot or more on a good dry day.

I used it for a science project in school one time, and incidentally shocked the heck out of a classmate who didn’t listen to instructions.

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**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lightning-rods/713662/2 "2015-02-26T18:34:58Z")

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[This short story](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2286/do-lightning-rods-really-work) by Mark Twain about lightning rods is required hilarious reading.