I don't know if all you Outlaws heard about the devastating Thunderstorm that swept through Michigan, Ohio and PA on the 21st, but it was a doosey! I left work 1/2 hour early after power was knocked out and the battery backups finally failed. We had power at home (wife and kids were safely hiding in the basement!)until I heard a "POP" from outsite and our power went into brown-out condition. Well, my wife, wanting to stay abreast of the weather situation, kept turning on the main TV, a 27" Panasonic. Now I'm no electrician, but I figured keeping the TV OFF was a good idea, right? I'm outside surveying the situation....every time my house lights browned you could see arcing light from a utility pole somewhere behind the homes on our side of the street. Well, my son starts shouting for me from inside the house, saying that Mom went to turn on the tv to check the weather reports, and all the tv's doing is making a high-pitched whine
We now have a cooked tv. I put a claim in to the electric company this morning so now I wait. The power was not restored to normal until 2:00am this morning(yes..5/24)!
My home owners policy has a $500 deductible, so that is more than the tv cost originally. Any other Outlaws have a similar story?

Ooh.... Storms.... Nasty stuff. I feel your pain.

My system was on a Panamax MAX5100 last summer when Memphis got hammered by straight-line winds that took out power to about 2/3rds of the city (leaving the gonk household offline for about 10.5 days), and we got away undamaged even though the power at our house browned out and flickered on and off several times before going out (the microwave's display did suffer somewhat permanent damage, but I've determined that was caused by excessive heat in the house during the week and a half of July heat during the outage). TurnerF (another Memphis-based gunslinger) also came through intact, but one of my co-workers had some electronics damaged (blown fuse in a Spectral pre-amp, dead VCR, and a TV that he initially thought was dead but somehow got working again after several trips to the shop).

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

The story gets better! My wife just called to let me know, with much frustration and anger, that she heard a "BOOM" followed by the power going out. We JUST got power restored this morning. She went to investigate and discovered a tree trimming crew 4-5 houses down the street had clipped a power line...UUHHGGGHHH!!!

Speaking with an electrician, he told me there's such a thing as a whole house spike protector that is wired into the mains entering your house. He didn't think it was expensive especially compared to frying your tv, micro, etc... Seems like a good idea. Why don't we hear more about this from any resident experts? (BTW, I'm completely confident that my Brickwall is protected the ht.)

Jay

I've got a couple co-workers (electrical engineers) who have talked with vendors about surge protectors like that. One of them even got a freebie for his house, but last time I asked (a couple years ago) he hadn't gotten an electrician out to install it yet. I think that they can be had for a couple hundred dollars, plus a hundred bucks or so for an electrician to install it. When I eventually put in a transfer switch for the generator (so I can run a few key circuits in the event of another lengthy power outage), I may look at adding one at the same time. Even with gear like this, it is probably not a bad idea to include something like a Brickwall or Panamax at the really valuable gear.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

My parents have one on their home in FL. They live just south of Tampa - the Lightning Capital of the World. I think it's pretty much SOP for homes in thier area. Even with it, they've still had a few lightning related issues with a whole house intercom/sound system. The main unit's been replaced twice ... apparently due to direct strikes - the antenna wire in the attic was blackened and charred and there were char spots on the unit's mainboard, but nothing else in the house has been touched.

They've since added one to their condo here in New England (they're "snow birds" ) and have pretty much talked me into having one retro-fitted - My builder refused to put one in during initial construction 2+ years ago.

pat----

This was NOT a direct result of a lightning strike or power spike. Having the tv on while the voltage took a roller coaster ride heated up and smoked what a friend called the 2nd annode. Could be the tube is shot maybe. It was not plugged into a surge/power strip, but directly in the outlet.

That's the same sort of roller coaster ride I witnessed when we lost power during the storm last summer (we had at least three good brown-outs in about five seconds, pulling down the lights and cable box, before we lost power for good). A good surge protector will keep those dips and spikes from tearing things up, whether it's located at the equipment or at the main panel. Unplugging the vital stuff is even better protection, but impractical for storms that hit while at work or come on too quickly to react to.

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gonk -- 950 Review | LFM-1 Review | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | Saloon Links

About three years ago, a couple of months after we moved into our house, my wife was reading in bed one Saturday morning. She noticed the bedside light was becoming brighter than usual. About 5 seconds later she heard a "POP" from the basement and all the lights went out.
They stayed out for about 10 hours as a repair crew fixed the damage caused by a pick-up hitting a utility pole about two miles from our house. Apparently he was running from the police when he slammed into the pole, causing the power line to fall and connect with the neutral line, sending enough juice to blow out the entire town and voltage in outlets to go up to about 160. People were throwing burning microwaves and tvs out their doors.
We lost our 10 year-old 27" Magnavox and a Sony vcr. Had to update to a Sony Trinitron (oh,well).
Cadboy, we figured if we had put in a claim our insurance would have gone up more than the cost for replacements.
Our contractor came to check the electricals and said he was glad we had him re-wire the house before we moved in (all the wiring was the two-copper-wires-wrapped-with-tape kind.It's a 100 year-old one-room schoolhouse renovated in the 50's). We would have lost the house if he hadn't.
The $30.00 power strip/spike protector I bought for the computer (the purchase of which I received a reprimand by she who must be obeyed) worked perfectly. There were scorch marks on the strip where the computer had been plugged, but the computer was fine.
She went right out and bought three more.



[This message has been edited by CBWills (edited May 27, 2004).]

For monitoring weather during bad storms and power outages, can anyone say "battery operated?"