Hi Pyton, I guess you meant,"lightning rods".They are also known as "lightning arrestors" or "lightning conductors".Their main purpose is to ground the surge due to lightning and protect the building from lightning strikes. . As far as I know,people who are aware of this and live in high altitudes they have installed it on their houses.You'd see a lightning conductor on every major building of the town. The reason why some people don't install it on their houses is,they have tall towers or other taller buildings adjacent to their houses.Lightning finds the shortest distance to the ground so,they hit taller buildings first. When a lightning strikes any lightning rod,it gives a coverage of 60 degree vertexed cone all around it.So the nearby areas are protected from lightning strikes. Though they are protected,they are not 100% safe as, some tiny branches also try to escape to the ground and it tries to find the shortest distance to the ground and "your house make come in the path of that shortest distance". Hence,it's always secure to have a lightning conductor installed and get it properly grounded by copper flats or else by chemical earthing. If you want more information on lightning conductors,you can always come back through comments.I'd love to talk on it and it's installation procedures. -----ET-----

I think your new Avatar suits you.

Well, my house and garages still have lightning rods....

Because new houses are grounded better.

They do.