Thunderstorms and Houses?

Question

Why is it rare for a house to get struck by lightning? Why is thunder so loud?

Answer 1

because houses are made of mostly woods

Answer 2

Lightning will travel to the highest object so maybe the tree next to the house was hit instead. Houses and barns used to have lightning rods on top of the roofs which are grounded with a wire that runs down into the ground. Thunder is loudest when it is closer to you. That super hot electrical bolt leaves a vacuum that fills instantly. Boom! I love a good light show.

Answer 3

Lighting do hit houses, but if the house is not grounded or made of wood it would hit something else as it'll be bad conductor of electricity.

As for the loud noise, when lighting travels through air it loses lots of energy due to high resistance in air (air is not good conductor of electricity).

Due to resistance its converted into heat and light, the heat in lighting is as hot as sun's corona, this means when air gets heated it expands very fast and that makes a sound of explosions that you hear as loud thunder cracks.

Why loud noise if air expands and explodes?

This is because when any object travels faster than speed of sound it causes Sonic boom, which is breaking of sound barrier, which is frankly concentration of sound waves at one single point, this leaves large amount of sound waves concentrated in small area or air, which is very loud.