Bang! Lightning storm.

denverpilot

denverpilot

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DenverPilot
Well that was entertaining.

Freak little thunderstorm rolled through, and one of the loudest and most interesting electrical storms I've seen since our condo was hit by lightning about ten years ago.

Lightning hit the cable drop, popped four breakers and a GFCI, and also fried the cablemodem.

Always interesting to live in the 2nd highest lightning strike State in the U.S.!

Radios and the link from the Internet to the Ham repeater that runs from here, and the KAPA TWR computer and radio for LiveATC are fine. But without Internet, offline for the moment.

And I'll be using the company Sprint modem for my 1AM maintenance window. ;)

Comcast says they'll be out in the morning to test the drop and replace the modem.

Wheee.
 
denverpilot said:
Well that was entertaining.

Freak little thunderstorm rolled through, and one of the loudest and most interesting electrical storms I've seen since our condo was hit by lightning about ten years ago.

Lightning hit the cable drop, popped four breakers and a GFCI, and also fried the cablemodem.

Always interesting to live in the 2nd highest lightning strike State in the U.S.!

Radios and the link from the Internet to the Ham repeater that runs from here, and the KAPA TWR computer and radio for LiveATC are fine. But without Internet, offline for the moment.

And I'll be using the company Sprint modem for my 1AM maintenance window. ;)

Comcast says they'll be out in the morning to test the drop and replace the modem.

Wheee.
Click to expand...

I tole you to git Clear but noooo, you wouldn't lissen...
 
Lighting storms are pretty random in where they hit. Maybe it's better to live in a place where they're common so you know to take precautions. I remember driving around a neighbourhood in PA on trash day after a storm. All kinds of fried electrical stuff out by the curb. Good to hear that you didn't lose anything too important.

I'm completely ignoring most of your post and focussing on the "2nd highest lightning strike State in the U.S." line. My quick search suggests than several southern states are actually higher.

But more interesting to me is this map of the global lightning activity: http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml

I don't think i would have guessed that central Africa had such would have the highest incidence of lightning, while north east Africa had almost nothing.
 
My quarters in Mobile were struck on the electrical service drop by our transformer. I had one of those Norelco electric shavers with the flip out prongs you could plug directly into the wall. My wife was taking a bath at the time as the shaver exploded in shower of sparks. She said it was the first time she had peed in a tub since she was a little girl!!!! :hairraise:
 
Death toll...

- Apple Time Capsule
- HDMI 1 input on main TV
- Radio interface board (IRLP) on one PC
- Cable modem

Will see if anything else pops up.

Stuffed an old 802.11g access point that wasn't in use back into service. Gave me thoughts of how I've wanted to redesign the home network anyway...

Picked up a couple of the new Airport Express 802.11n dual-band routers. Installing now. Splitting network into wireless internal and external since I have public static IPs. Good time to do it. Now services machines can be segregated from the internal machines. Good change.

Picked up Buffalo Linkstation Duo. Good excuse to RAID 1 the backups.

Comcast replaced the cable modem with a DOCSIS 3.0 modem and I went from 12 Mb/s to 20 Mb/s download and now 4 Mb/s upload. Wheee...
 
Damn. Found where it hit. No wonder it was so loud. It hit my detached garage.

Hadn't been in there since the strike. Couldn't get garage door opened to work. Realized when I walked out back and saw shingles from the new roof last summer lying in the grass, I was going to find badness.

The roof where the return strike exited...

ynaguby9.jpg


The wiring run directly under that soffit...

a8amaset.jpg


The garage door control box, note the press button is melted and bulged out. Interesting smell too... the other buttons are crunchy.

ba8ary3a.jpg


The control wiring is black all the way to a metal light box for a standard bulb.

Looks like I need to get an electrician out here for a full inspection and a claim started. Just the way to start the weekend. Sigh.
 
Nifty. I see the Tapatalk server links to the photos died.

Today was inspection day. Every light switch, outlet, and light fixture visually inspected.

Romex in the garage, one section toasted. Replaced. One surge protector blown. Also learned that former Harry Homeowner idiot that wired the garage reversed hit and neutral on half the leg. Guess which outlets were the ones I never checked when I checked the whole house years ago. Yeah, the detached garage.

Dude dropped dead of a heart attack in his retirement dream home two years after selling us this place, so no one left to be cranky at. He was a super nice guy, but the stuff I've found in this house... He wasn't very good at handyman stuff, that's for sure. Oh well. The electrician cussed his 4' flourescent light fixture stuffed into a 4' 1" space.

He also spotted a mousetrap set way way up inside the ceiling of the dining room, which isn't even accessible anymore... No mouse in it, no bait, thank goodness. It's just sitting there waiting to fall out of the ceiling someday if there's ever demolition done. In fact, Electrician commented on the complete lack of mouse or other signs of bugs, mice, or pests of any sort anywhere. He says he's used to seeing a lot of that. Nothing today. Nice. Might be able to reach the trap if I take down the lamp in the dining room. Sheesh. I think I'll pass. I'd probably just reach up in there and get a finger snapped. And it's probably a real mouse trap, not one of the sissy modern traps too.

Ground wire in the basement on one leg, toasted along with an outlet. Fixed.

The basement leg that had the open ground was, of course, in the back unfinished area where all the storage shelving with heavy radios, duplexers, computers, and other stored gear was stashed along the wall behind those. And then behind the three sheets of old-school sheetrock that two of us could barely move (not the wimpy stuff you buy today, the real stuff) behind that.

Security light on the garage, dead. Garage door opener, dead.

And the annoying one...

Master bath/bedroom ring out was fine with a megaohm'er and then when put back together everything worked, and three hours later I go up to a dark room and no breakers tripped in the panel again.

Argh. Left voice mail for the electricians. That one is an intermittent in a wall somewhere. Damn it. Of all rooms to start ripping through drywall in, why did it have to be there?

Another "why the hell did I buy this big house for two people" teachable moment today...

Guess we'll see where they decide to tear open the wall tomorrow. Unless they can find a bad wire with a break under the insulation in a J-box, but I doubt it. The stuff is good. I bet it's burnt somewhere, now to find it.

Still have to find a roofing contractor and garage door place (probably use the same place as before on the garage door), and I can probably dig up the roofing place that put this one on last year.
 
Looks like you now have a bona fide insurance claim,
 
Nate - AL or Cu wire? Man, what a headache...

I had a bunch of AL wire in my house - tight connections were all ok, but any disturbances - replacing outlet, et al - and the old, brittle AL would break.
 
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Be careful with your insurance carrier. I had a lightning strike several years ago that took out a computer, and a garage door opener, and a few other things. I filed a claim, IIRC it was under $1K. Shortly thereafter my insurance carrier dropped me, and this was the first claim I ever filed.
 
but on the other hand (there's ALWAYS an 'other hand', right?) :) we had a lightning strike at the house that took out everything on the cable and downstream thru the CAT-5, and other stuff not surge suppressed (garage door opener, et al) ... a few days later we had the monster hail storm that took out a few windows, siding, roof ...

Our insurance carrier handled it all with professionalism and no rate increase. I wonder if the size of the area and numbers of claims had anything to do with it?
 
Yeah, I'm not saying to not file a claim, but I would discuss the implications of rates, and coverage with them prior to filing.

Glad it worked out for you Greg.
 
looks like the shingle/frame work will be $1000 - then there is the hidden damage to appliances - you need a good claims guy and might need to hire one your self to find all the hidden stuff - and reduced life expectancy etc. all of which is a valid claim.
 
Understood on all. Claim is already filed, and we are just working through it all.

Electrician couldn't come out today (talking to him yesterday, he was fighting a cold and there was another guy out) but they're a good company with a decent reputation, just a bad day for them, so we wait until tomorrow to find out what's going on upstairs.

As far as the insurance dropping us, we'll see. Will deal with that bridge if we come to it. So far, they've been more than helpful. The claim isn't likely to top $3500 yet by my estimates, maybe $4500 max, and the policy is a fairly good one, certainly not the minimum type policy some folks carry.

Mostly it's just a pain in the butt. Didn't get any work done yesterday around the house with the power off, so today is catch up day on projects and tomorrow the power will be off again. Only good news is that it's my work-from-home week.

I'd whine, but a co-worker found out his kid has a tumor on his brain stem. Kinda keeps it all in perspective... this is just blown wiring and a dark bedroom, quite minor compared to that.
 
denverpilot said:
Electrician couldn't come out today (talking to him yesterday, he was fighting a cold and there was another guy out) but they're a good company with a decent reputation, just a bad day for them, so we wait until tomorrow to find out what's going on upstairs.
Click to expand...

So who's the good company with a decent rep for an electrician in Denver? I'm less than happy with the ones I've dealt with so far.
 
I would recommend getting an HVAC guy to check electrical and especially capacitors on your units. I replace several after a storm.

I always recommend to my customers to turn off main breaker, unplug satellite/phone/internet before a storm. Invest in interconnected smoke alarms. I have twelve including crawlspace and attic. Also a lightning rod placed away from house may help.
 
We had a recent lightning strike here on the POA. Zapped a couple threads even.
 
Clark1961 said:
So who's the good company with a decent rep for an electrician in Denver? I'm less than happy with the ones I've dealt with so far.
Click to expand...

They came as a recommendation of the General Contractor that will get used if we have to start digging in walls. I had never heard of them. They mostly do commercial but have a residential side.

Vandre Electric & Refrigeration
303-777-2318 owner's name is Vasily.

Their guy and I talked about possible upgrades to the grounding system and he didn't push it at all, even described which pieces I could do myself and then just pay them for an hour's work to connect it to the service panel. I'm not relishing the idea of trying to pound two new ground Ross in this soil, so that may get farmed out to them later. Have to tear out a chunk of the back porch brick to do it, anyway.

Other than pronouncing things "good" and having that intermittent open come back later after I said, "It doesn't make any sense that circuit is working now", I have no complaints.

I'm sure they hear that line from people all the time. (He related a story where a homeowner swore up and down it couldn't be a tripped GFCI and when they arrived, he walked to the panel and reset a GFCI and the owner said, "Oh. That.")

Since they're HVAC folks too, they inspected the electrics on the furnace. One wire nut had a burn mark on the neutral feeding the furnace, and was replaced. Looked like the lightning jumped to ground via the furnace housing there. Wasn't electrically far away from where one of the legs in the basement had a blown ground wire.

Garage door opener guy is scheduled for early next week since the electrical folks will be back tomorrow and they'll be in each other's way.

Haven't even started finding someone to mess with the roof hole yet. Sigh. It's mostly covered and splintered more than its a "hole" on the detached garage anyway, and I have plastic! Ha.

Unrelated to the strike, the tree guys have been out all week giving estimates on removing nuisance sucker maple trees and hell, while I'm stuck here anyway I might as well finally have a plumber look at a leaky tub faucet too? Ha.

The most amazing part was the little melted plastic trails on a couple of breakers in the main panel. The lightning did a nice little dance in there. All got tested too, of course.
 
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