Lightening rods

Moving into an old farm soon. Old dairy barn has lightening rods. I have copy of NEC 2002, but it mostly refers to NFPA 780 for lightening rod information.

My question is what should I look for to find if lightening rods are properly installed and grounded? Most of the electrical is in poor shape, so I expect the lightening rods will be as well.

 

There should be a braided wire between the lightening rod and a ground rod. If the rods are typical of farm houses the wire has long since deteriorated and is no longer hooked to anything. I used to have the same situation before I moved to town. Years ago the lightening rod salesmen cleaned up here in Iowa selling to all the farmers. For my money I wouldn't even worry about fixing them. I didn't. We had a tornado come close to our place & got our neighbor down the gravel road from us, but we didn't have any problem with lightening in over 12 years at the place. Maybe it was the 325,000 volt power line going over our front yard that protected our house. We were lucky the tornado didn't knock that line down on our house. Lightening rods wouldn't do much good in that situation.

 

The NEC refers to NFPA 780 for lightning protection because....
that's the installation standard. Many many requirements for lightning protection. UL also has a standard 96A.
Would you consider having a Vendor come out and check it out?
Also, Underwriters Laboratories has a service called "Master Label" which includes certifying the install. http://www.ul.com/auth/tca/fall03/master.html