Lightning damage!

[poconojoe]

I was at the kitchen sink two days ago and out the window witnessed lightning hit in the neighbor's yard. The crack of thunder was like I've never heard in my life. I don't know how to describe it. It was loud, crisp and sharp.

Three circuit breakers tripped in my home's electrical panel.

The surge fried 5 things in my house ( that I've noticed so far).
1. My garage door opener
2. A Roku stick
3. A component for my cable tv
4. My APC UPS/surge unit for my computer and peripherals. It sacrificed itself to save my equipment.
5. The main relay control box for my oil burner, which heats my water. Glad it wasn't winter or I'd have no heat!

I wouldn't be surprised if something else is fried that I haven't noticed yet.

My house alarm is acting funny, showing open circuits when everything is closed. I haven't had time to check that out yet, so that might be #6.

Everything that was plugged into a surge protector was OK.
I guess I need more surge protectors.
I'm definitely adding one in the garage for when the new door opener arrives.
And the oil burner. I have to figure out how to protect that too. I think they make surge protectors that can be hard wired. I have to do some research.

Maybe there's a whole house surge protector? I don't know...gotta do some research.

One of my neighbors has his house set up with lightning rods. I wonder if that would have helped? We didn't get hit directly, it was more like being near the strike.

Like I said, I have to do some research, but if anyone has experience, knowledge or suggestions, I'd appreciate that.
Thanks,
Joe

 

[Mmathis]

Glad you’re OK!

 

[Criscar]

I was at the kitchen sink two days ago and out the window witnessed lightning hit in the neighbor's yard. The crack of thunder was like I've never heard in my life. I don't know how to describe it. It was loud, crisp and sharp.

Three circuit breakers tripped in my home's electrical panel.

The surge fried 5 things in my house ( that I've noticed so far).
1. My garage door opener
2. A Roku stick
3. A component for my cable tv
4. My APC UPS/surge unit for my computer and peripherals. It sacrificed itself to save my equipment.
5. The main relay control box for my oil burner, which heats my water. Glad it wasn't winter or I'd have no heat!

I wouldn't be surprised if something else is fried that I haven't noticed yet.

My house alarm is acting funny, showing open circuits when everything is closed. I haven't had time to check that out yet, so that might be #6.

Everything that was plugged into a surge protector was OK.
I guess I need more surge protectors.
I'm definitely adding one in the garage for when the new door opener arrives.
And the oil burner. I have to figure out how to protect that too. I think they make surge protectors that can be hard wired. I have to do some research.

Maybe there's a whole house surge protector? I don't know...gotta do some research.

One of my neighbors has his house set up with lightning rods. I wonder if that would have helped? We didn't get hit directly, it was more like being near the strike.

Like I said, I have to do some research, but if anyone has experience, knowledge or suggestions, I'd appreciate that.
Thanks,
Joe

Glad it only hit the yard!

Whole house surge protectors definitely do exist, my husband has a huge amount of electronics for his work, so I know from him, but we live in an area where lightning is so infrequent, I don't think he ended up getting one. You'd need an electrician to install unless you have a lot of electrical experience, I would think.

 

[poconojoe]

Glad it only hit the yard!

Whole house surge protectors definitely do exist, my husband has a huge amount of electronics for his work, so I know from him, but we live in an area where lightning is so infrequent, I don't think he ended up getting one. You'd need an electrician to install unless you have a lot of electrical experience, I would think.

Actually, I'm a retired union electrician! Imagine that!
I don't have much experience on this subject though.
I mostly worked on big jobs in Manhattan. High rise buildings, power plants, subway work, new construction, big service work, major conduit installs, fiber optic, security systems (cameras, turnstiles, card readers, networking, etc.).

 

[Criscar]

Actually, I'm a retired union electrician! Imagine that!
I don't have much experience on this subject though.
I mostly worked on big jobs in Manhattan. High rise buildings, power plants, subway work, new construction, big service work, major conduit installs, fiber optic, security systems (cameras, turnstiles, card readers, networking, etc.).

Cool! My husband thinks he's an electrician I mean, don't get me wrong, he's not out there passing himself off as an electrician. He does have a lot of experience from his work in designing and building hardware laser optics systems in both europe and the US, so he usually DIYs all the electrical work we need around here.

 

[poconojoe]

OK, there are whole house surfer protectors that can be installed in a residential electrical panel.

Siemens makes a nice one for a little over $200. It has LED and audible indicators.

You have to have a 2 pole space available in your panel.

This device mounts to the outside of your panel and it's wires connect to the neutral/ground bar and to a 2 pole 20 amp circuit breaker that you add to your panel.

 

[poconojoe]

Cool! My husband thinks he's an electrician I mean, don't get me wrong, he's not out there passing himself off as an electrician. He does have a lot of experience from his work in designing and building hardware laser optics systems in both europe and the US, so he usually DIYs all the electrical work we need around here.

Cool!
He sounds qualified to me!
With his knowledge and knowing a bit of the local codes, he should be fine with most common electrical tasks around the home. You save a boat load of money doing it yourself, as long as it's done safely and properly.

 

[poconojoe]

OK, for anyone interested...
I ordered a Square D HEPD80 whole house surge protector. It's a type 1 (the highest rating), 120/240 volt, 8kA surge current per phase, 25kA short circuit current rating, 5 year warranty, $127 on Amazon.

It gets mounted to the enclosure of a circuit breaker panel via a knockout and has two LED status lights on it.

You can wire it two ways...
You wire the two black wires to a two pole 20 amp circuit breaker or it can be wired directly to the buss after the main breaker.
There's also a white neutral and a green ground wire.

My Square D Homeline (120/240 volt single phase 3 wire 200 amp) panel has a bolt on each buss connecting the main breaker to the buss. That's where they say to connect it, if you choose that method (instead of the two pole 20 amp circuit breaker method).

Now I won't have to buy a bunch of individual surge protectors, plus everything in my house will now be protected, and with a much higher protection.

Hope this helps others.

 

[Tula]

Thank you for the info, I sent it to my hubby. I'm sorry this happened but glad it wasn't more serious.

 

[poconojoe]

Thank you for the info, I sent it to my hubby. I'm sorry this happened but glad it wasn't more serious.

Luckily it didn't affect the pond, even though it is located between our house and where I saw the lightning bolt.

 

[combatwombat]

Sounds like you've got it sorted out. A whole house surge protector is definitely a good idea. Sounds like you got the highest rated one, too. That's good. Will give good protection for strikes nearby. A direct hit, I'm pretty sure, would still fry even the world's biggest surge protector and everything downstream of it.

Maybe your fish would like a flag pole that could double as a lightning rod?

 

[Lisak1]

Remember lightning rods? Those were so intriguing to us kids!

 

[Chucker's 50]

This is the surge protection that I have.

Amazon.com: Eaton CHSPT2SURGE SPD Type 2 Chsp Whole Home Surge Protector, Nema 4, Single Phase, 120/240 Volts, Ul 1449 3Rd Edition : Electronics

Buy Eaton CHSPT2SURGE SPD Type 2 Chsp Whole Home Surge Protector, Nema 4, Single Phase, 120/240 Volts, Ul 1449 3Rd Edition: Surge Protectors - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

 

[Stephen Noble]

I was at the kitchen sink two days ago and out the window witnessed lightning hit in the neighbor's yard. The crack of thunder was like I've never heard in my life. I don't know how to describe it. It was loud, crisp and sharp.

Three circuit breakers tripped in my home's electrical panel.

The surge fried 5 things in my house ( that I've noticed so far).
1. My garage door opener
2. A Roku stick
3. A component for my cable tv
4. My APC UPS/surge unit for my computer and peripherals. It sacrificed itself to save my equipment.
5. The main relay control box for my oil burner, which heats my water. Glad it wasn't winter or I'd have no heat!

I wouldn't be surprised if something else is fried that I haven't noticed yet.

My house alarm is acting funny, showing open circuits when everything is closed. I haven't had time to check that out yet, so that might be #6.

Everything that was plugged into a surge protector was OK.
I guess I need more surge protectors.
I'm definitely adding one in the garage for when the new door opener arrives.
And the oil burner. I have to figure out how to protect that too. I think they make surge protectors that can be hard wired. I have to do some research.

Maybe there's a whole house surge protector? I don't know...gotta do some research.

One of my neighbors has his house set up with lightning rods. I wonder if that would have helped? We didn't get hit directly, it was more like being near the strike.

Like I said, I have to do some research, but if anyone has experience, knowledge or suggestions, I'd appreciate that.
Thanks,
Joe

Sorry to hear this. We had a direct strike on the power box in the yard that supplied power to our home and the next door neighbor. He lost all of his computers, TVs and all sorts of electronics. We had one garage door opener fried and the Air conditioner quit. The A/C blew a couple of capacitors. Our electronics (computer & TV etc) had their own surge protectors (the biggest available at the time) and were fine. But about two-three months later, all of our major appliances started to fail. After that, we had the power company put a surge protector on our meter and that helps filter out the daily surges but will do nothing for a direct stroke a lightening.

 

[poconojoe]

Sorry to hear this. We had a direct strike on the power box in the yard that supplied power to our home and the next door neighbor. He lost all of his computers, TVs and all sorts of electronics. We had one garage door opener fried and the Air conditioner quit. The A/C blew a couple of capacitors. Our electronics (computer & TV etc) had their own surge protectors (the biggest available at the time) and were fine. But about two-three months later, all of our major appliances started to fail. After that, we had the power company put a surge protector on our meter and that helps filter out the daily surges but will do nothing for a direct stroke a lightening.

Wow!
Your neighbor got hit pretty hard.

That's great that the power company added a surge protector.

I learned a lesson that not all surge protectors are created equally.
I had one that i didn't realize was only 325 joules and a Roku stick fried. The weird thing is that there was a tv, blu ray, cable box and a couple other things plugged into the same surge strip and they were ok....so far.

My printer was plugged into another surge strip and it's screen is blank, so I guess that's fried too.

I had the rest of my computer stuff plugged into an APC UPS/surge unit. All that equipment seems OK, but the UPS itself fried. APC sent me a new one.

My outside security cameras are not working. The DVR might be fried. I haven't checked it yet.

I'm hoping we don't find more stuff fried.

Thanks for the info.