Storms don’t negotiate, and neither should your safety strategy. We’re kicking off Grounded in Safety by getting practical about lightning protection: how strikes really travel, where myths mislead decisions and why the newest BS EN IEC 62305 standard changes how we think about risk, fire and system uptime. With our guest Matt Waldram, a technical and compliance leader involved in national and international standards, we break down the essentials in plain language and share examples that stick.

We explore the evolution from older British guidance to the international IEC framework, then unpack the 2024 risk methodology that unifies human safety, fire risk and system availability. You’ll hear how external protection captures and routes energy to ground, while internal co-ordination of surge protection devices shields critical equipment and prevents dangerous flashover. From granite-heavy ground that spreads energy laterally to cables that ferry overvoltages deep into buildings, we map out the hidden paths lightning takes and the layered defences that actually work.

Real-world stories drive the point home: distilleries with flammable vapours, defence sites needing isolated mast and catenary systems, and residential blocks where a single flashover can start a fire.

We also dig into competency and the Building Safety Act: what good looks like in design, inspection and maintenance and why owners are re-running assessments with the latest process to expose blind spots. The payoff is clarity: a practical checklist for reassessment, a smarter view of cost versus consequence and a plan to keep people safe and operations resilient.

If you care about safety, business continuity or insurance readiness, this conversation will sharpen your decisions. Subscribe for more grounded guidance, share this episode with a colleague and leave a review to tell us what you want us to tackle next.

Next Episode Preview:

Tim Lee will discuss changes to BS 7883:2019 for height safety compliance.

Thank you for listening to Omega Red's podcast. All information was accurate at the time of recording.

Omega Red is a UK market leader in lightning protection, height safety, earthing and surge protection.

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