Should metal chimney liners be grounded against lightning strikes?

[Spinnor]

I was at a home today which a while back had a lightning bolt strike the chimney and explode the top of the chimney off. On the drive home I got to thinking, I have two metal chimney liners, one for a first floor wood-stove and another for the furnace and only the furnace liner is indirectly grounded, I guess, via the furnace ground. If TV antennas need to be grounded should chimney liners be grounded in a manner similar to external TV antennas?

Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[berkeman]

I was at a home today which a while back had a lightning bolt strike the chimney and explode the top of the chimney off. On the drive home I got to thinking, I have two metal chimney liners, one for a first floor wood-stove and another for the furnace and only the furnace liner is indirectly grounded, I guess, via the furnace ground. If TV antennas need to be grounded should chimney liners be grounded in a manner similar to external TV antennas?

Thank you for your thoughts!

It seems like they should, but I don't know for sure. I'd suggest calling your city's Building Inspector's office to ask. There may be a building code that covers how it should be grounded.

 

[Averagesupernova]

I don't think a metal chimney gets high enough into the air as to drain the static charge off. So I don't think it would make a difference. Look how many times a year lightning strikes communication towers and they generally have a pretty low impedance to ground; certainly low enough to drain charge out of the atmosphere, but they still get plenty of direct strikes.