Lightning and surge protection is an essential factor when it comes to preventing failures and major damage to equipment while protecting people. Today, it is even more to protect modern electrical and electronic equipment in all commercial and public service activities, such as hotels, from voltage surges caused by lightning and surges.
The arrival of the summer season, as well as recent climate changes and increasingly violent, frequent and sudden weather phenomena, shift the focus to the importance of safeguarding the safety of people – hotel guests – and protecting buildings and installations to prevent structural damage, building failures, service interruptions and data loss.
In addition to the safety aspects and the need to ensure the proper functioning of facilities and the continuity of services offered, one should not underestimate the regulatory obligations (Legislative Decree 81/08) that require all buildings in which work activities are carried out to carry out and update the assessment of occupational risks, including the risk of lightning, and to take all necessary measures to ensure safety.
You haven’t performed a Lightning Risk Assessment for your hotel yet? Turn to Euthalia for a professional and accurate service.
Preferential terms for Federalberghi members!
Often unknown or underestimated, the subject of the lightning risk assessment is one of the obligations that the owner of a hotel, as an employer, must fulfil.
What is the procedure for checking whether a hotel is protected or if it needs a lightning protection system?
How can you effectively and comprehensively defend your hotel, guests and facilities from lightning and surges?
Discover how to take preventive action to protect your hotel from lightning and surges with Euthalia’s active defence solutions.
Lightning and power surges: identifying risks...
The direct and indirect lightning strikes can cause damage to structures (roofs, photovoltaic systems, breakage and collapse of parts of the building, …), people (employees and guests) and the electrical and electronic equipment through which a hospitality venue offers services to its customers.
In particular, indirect lightning and transient overvoltages caused by lightning strike returns or switching operations, may damage the systems and equipment inside the hotel, such as: power lines and computer networks, servers and switchboards, video surveillance systems, lift systems, heating and plumbing systems, etc. Damage can extend to the vicinity of the structure and therefore affect the surrounding environment.
Structural damage to the building, installations, electrical equipment and any personal injury caused by electrocution or dangerous situations (fires, explosions, …) that may be generated following a lightning strike or a surge phenomenon, may entail significant economic costs for the hotel, not to mention the interruption of operations with a consequent lack of continuity and efficiency of the services offered to customers.
...and compliance with standards.
Knowing your establishment’s lightning risk is a step required by law and a condition for guaranteeing the safety of hotel guests.
Legislative Decree 81/08 obliges employers to carry out an assessment of all risks to which their workers are exposed, including the assessment of the risk of direct and indirect lightning strikes, using CEI standards, in particular Standard CEI EN 62305, in force since 01 March 2013.
Who should be in charge of the lightning risk assessment in hotels?
Lightning risk assessment for hotels must be carried out by a specialised technician able to deal with the collection and analysis of the data necessary for the assessment (environmental, structure, and installation characteristics, as well as estimation of possible losses), to determine the building’s degree of risk and the need, or not, to install a lightning and surge protection system.
The lightning risk is therefore one of those risks that must be “reviewed” and updated, taking into account a possible increase in risk that materialises over time as a result of climatic changes or changes in work organisation (structural extensions, increase in personnel, production areas with a high explosive risk, etc.).
As of 1 June 2020, CEI Guide 81-29 introduced the obligation to update the Lightning Risk Assessment at least every 5 years. This update also requires all Lightning Risk Assessments carried out before 1 June 2020 to be revised.
Lightning risk assessment
MANDATORY
One of the Employer’s obligations (Legislative Decree 81/08) is the Assessment of all risks to which its workers are subjected. This also includes the assessment of direct and indirect lightning risk for all environments in which work activities take place
For more information or to book a free consultation, please contact the Euthalia offices.
Euthalia provides an experienced technical department for the production and updating of the Lightning Risk Assessment Document.For more information:
How can the hotel be preventively protected against lightning and surges?
The Euthalia systems, based on an ‘active’ approach, work on prevention by keeping the electromagnetic field formed during thunderstorm phenomena in balance, reducing its alterations and thus the possibility of the formation of the channel for the leader discharge.
The preventive approach is the main feature that distinguishes them from traditional lightning rods, which are based instead on a passive operating approach involving metal rods whose peculiarity is that they attract electrical discharges (‘spike effect‘) and dissipate them to ground through the down conductors. These solutions only limit damage without preventing it, and without considering the frequent possibility of energy returning to the interior of the building – as we have seen a very important factor – through all the electrical and electronic equipment connected with a grounding conductor.
When it comes to lightning and surge protection, it is now increasingly important to recognise the risks to which one is exposed in the absence of a protection system and to choose a solution that works with a preventive approach, which can offer complete protection from lightning and surges and guarantee the safety of one’s structure, installations and the people inside.
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- The components of our systems are so discreet that their presence on buildings is almost imperceptible.
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- Overvoltage prevention eliminates the risk of opening claims with insurance.
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- No system downtime caused by surges to guarantee your business and the safety of your customers.
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- We include, for each installation, an insurance policy with 10-year product liability warranty.
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- For all Federalberghi members, we reserve a dedicated 15% discount on the cost of any new installation.
How well is your hotel protected against lightning and surges?Find out with Euthalia.
Euthalia provides hotels, consultants and design engineers with all its know-how and an experienced technical department for the analysis of the documented facts and the implementation of all lightning and surge defence solutions.
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Antimpatto® Technology Eliminates Lightning Damage
Antimpatto® Technology makes eliminating lightning damage possible!
Our technology’s preventive approach makes it possible to address the root causes of lightning strikes, preventing their formation.