Article on Lightning Protection Published

Jennifer Morgan and I have co-authored "Lightning Protection and the Building Envelope" in the August 2015 issue of Construction Specifier. The article provides architects with authoritative guidance to integrating lightning protection into their designs, a topic not discussed in the existing literature on lightning protection. The article can be read at www.kenilworth.com/publications/cs/de/201508/files/10.html.

Consultant to East Coast Lightning Protection

Morgan is Secretary/Treasure of East Coast Lightning Protection, Inc. (www.ECLE.biz), the leading manufacturer of lightning protection products in the U.S. Her firm has retained me as its architectural and marketing consultant. In a recent press release,  Morgan, explains, “Chusid is helping us educate architects and builders about the importance of lightning protection. He is widely recognized as an authority in building materials and for his effectiveness in explaining technical issues to the design and construction communities.”

Since most lightning protection installers are small businesses, Morgan believes, “Chusid's effort to educate designers will be good for the entire lightning protection industry and will provide our customers with promotional resources to use in their own regions.”

I am pleased to be working with ECLE. The risks of damage due to lightning have increased as a result of climate change and the widespread use of digital electronics in buildings. It is important for architects to realize that lightning protection should be an intrinsic part of designing a high performance building envelope. ECLE is taking leadership to collaborate with designers and develop lightning protection schemes that are compatible with contemporary architectural styles.

NIBS Report Identify Industry Priorities

National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) has released a report, “Moving Forward: Findings and Recommendations from the Consultative Council,” outlining three key priorities for the building industry:

1. labor force: Industry professionals are aging and retiring, required skills are changing, and we underestimate the value of vocational training.

Opportunity for Building Product Manufacturers:
1. Introduce systems that require less labor or less specialized skills.
2. Invest in robotics or move processes from field into factories
3. Create and support career training programs.
4. Show young people how you offer and support a career path in the trades.

2. resilient design: I have been predicting this as the "next new thing" in construction. This category is broad and includes, in my opinion, extreme weather, fire and fire storm, earthquake, climate change, violence and civil unrest, dependence on fragile infrastructure, etc.

Opportunities for Building Product Manufactures:
1. Make your own infrastructure more resilient.
2. Develop rapid response capabilities to move products and skills to needed locations.
3. Identify which of your products can contribute to improved building resilience.
4. Develop new products that offer improved resilience.
5. Train sales team to address resilience concerns of customers.

3 code enforcement: The report encourages federal agencies to work with industry to try to make sense of an increasing number of codes and the disconnect between code making and code enforcing.

Opportunities for Building Product Manufactures:
1. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
2. Help your customers make sense of the increasing complexity of codes and standards.

Download the report here, than contact me to discuss how you can use the findings to protect your business from risk and take advantage of new opportunities.

Michael Chusid, RA FCSI CCS
+1 818 219 4937
www.chusid.com 

More Lightning? New Opportunities!

"Atmospheric scientists looked at predictions of precipitation and cloud buoyancy in 11 different climate models and concluded that their combined effect will generate 50 percent more electrical discharges to the ground by the end of the century because of global warming. The main cause is water vapor, which fuels explosive deep convection in the atmosphere. The more convection, the greater the charge separation and the more cloud-to-ground strikes."  

Credit: © Sondem / Fotolia

If this is turns out to be true, watch for increased regulations about lightning protection leading and innovations in lightning protection systems. Also look for increased demand for lightning protection products and changes in the geographic distribution of lightning demand.


Along with increased danger from storms, floods, and wildfire, this news about lightning demonstrates that climate change will be a major driver of construction innovation in the decades ahead.

Quote from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141113142112.htm