My TV, Playstation 4 & modem all broke after a lightning strike.
The question I have is this my responsibility or the landlords fault? Shouldn't there be surge-guard devices placed on external powerboards to the unit/building to prevent this from occurring?
Also how would I prevent this from happening in the future?
Thanks in advance for any input.
where is a good place to get surge protected power boards?
This one ticks ALL the boxes and is reasonably priced and comes with $50,000 cover in case of failure to provide surge protection
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CyberPower-8-Way-Outlet-Surge-Pr…
lol yes, there should be surge protectors. YOU should have put them there. lol
Yes the landlord is responsible for purchasing in a position where a lightning strike would occur, and thus you are entitled to replacement of all of your damaged goods, a weeks getaway in the bahamas and their first born child.
What about 1 weeks free rent as well?
lol at this thread…
The landlord has absolutely no control over what electricity enters your building. Surge protectors are no good against nearby lightning strikes anyway. If a lightning bolt has managed to jump many kilometres, it will just jump through a little switch.
While you're at it, consider making a claim against your electricity company, council and perhaps the weatherman?
Surge protectors… lightning bolt … will just jump through a little switch.
Yes, this is how surge protectors actually work - they appear as shunts for high voltages.
Last I heard, the weatherman wasn't the one responsible for the weather. We all know who's really responsible…
The weatherman always predicts severe storms, wind gusts, flash flooding and large hail to cover themselves.
But does not predict lightning strikes and power surges.
About time that was included in the weathermans standard storm script.
Surge protectors are no good against nearby lightning strikes anyway.
….well then you got shit surge protector then if it can't guard against a bolt of lightning…..
….well then you got shit surge protector then if it can't guard against a bolt of lightning…..
The way I see it, lightning strikes are a bit like car accidents, and surge protectors are a bit like air bags.
In a small accident, an airbag can absolutely save you. But in a big accident, you'll die anyway.
Likewise, if lightning strikes nearby, an induced surge could come through your power or phone lines and damage equipment. A good surge protector would likely help with that.
But if lightning strikes really close to you, the surge could be far too great for even a very high-end surge protector to do anything. If it was a direct hit, there'd be no chance.
So it all depends. Surge protectors can protect against some strikes, but not all.
In a small accident, an airbag can absolutely save you. But in a big accident, you'll die anyway.
I've never been in a car crash before where the airbags would deploy so I wouldn't know either way, small or big….but the airbags are touted to save lives…..along with wearing seatbelts……so as long as you got them both, you should still survive a car crash small or big unless the car got crushed to smithereens in which case yeah I guess you would also be crushed to death too with those airbags and seatbelt holding you in position…..
But if lightning strikes really close to you, the surge could be far too great for even a very high-end surge protector to do anything. If it was a direct hit, there'd be no chance.
So it all depends. Surge protectors can protect against some strikes, but not all.
…doesn't the earth do at least something? Even if the surge protector board fails to guard against a direct lightning bolt strike, earth should still be able to nullify it……rending the bolt of lightning strike that hit your, say incoming power cables from the power poles directly, harmless….
@Zachary: From my understanding most of the electronics like TV's fridges etc.. that are on standby mode may get affected. If the wall switch was actually off the earth would have helped to absorb all the power, don't have to remove the cable.
This thread goes into technical details:
https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3n98qa/does_lig…
OP can check or ask the landlord to check if the Earth or Ground connection is good or not for the house, if it is an old building there could be corrosion or loose connections, good to check the ground connection to make sure your wiring is safe.
@Melbro2006: No, you need to unplug the cable. Lightning can easily jump through the little air gap between the conductors inside your switch and fry your device regardless of whether the switch is 'on' or 'off'.
A common misconception is that electricity takes the path of least resistance (earth, ground etc). Electricity actually follows all available paths, and those with lesser resistance get more current. Unfortunately the remaining energy may still be enough to fry your device which is why surge protectors may not work for nearby hits.
@tanksinatra: Just chuck in some of these inline with your electrical cabling and that way ensures all current or at least most of the current goes down earth….
My TV, Playstation 4 & modem all broke after a lightning strike.
Ouch, how many pieces did they break into?
I'd suggest with a lightning strike at least in 2 places
I think lightning is deemed an act of Zeus.
Were you playing at the time?
I thought lightning was an act of Thor.
I suppose it depends whether you're in Greece or Norway.
Here’s ozbargain usual answers for you.
1. Bikies
2. Report the weatherman for providing misleading information to Accc
3. Blame the non-certified xiaomi powerboard you may have and how insurance doesn’t cover it
check your insurance policy to see if you're covered by lightning strikes. You do have insurance, dont you?
btw, lightning can jump huge distances… nothing will protect you. nothing
it's landlords faults , landlords should take out contents insurance for their tenants.
/s
The faults are with the manufacturers who did not make their equipment immune to lightning storms.
Also how would I prevent this from happening in the future?
An obvious solution might be to unplug your devices when there's a lightning storm.
Yeah, sure, let's go around and unplug absolutely everything every goddamn time there's a storm. Hell, might as well just shut everything off from the circuit breaker and sit in darkness huddled around a candle, regularly and for hours on end just to be safe. /s
Well if you don't have a surge protection device on them, then YES this is the only way to 100% protect them.
Hey, I don't decide how lightning storms and electricity works. OP asked how he can prevent this from happening - without surge protection device(s), this is how. Or, you can take the risk of your electrical devices getting fried like OP's.
A reasonable compromise would be, since you should have your electronics behind one or two (hopefully surge-protected) powerboards already, you'd have only two things to unplug.
I was recently looking at surge protected powerboards due to lightening killing my modem. The packaging on the powerboard said during lightening to unplug the powerboard from the GPO as it will not provide adequate protection. This was confirmed by the tech at iiNet who provided me with a new modem.
@TheOtherLeft: Nothing will protect you from a direct strike, or a striking to the ground within 100m.
A top of the line surge protector might stop 3,000 joules, a lightning strike has 5,000,000,000 joules.
It will however stop some of the smaller surges, and sometimes the board bites it and saves the rest. But then you need to replace the board, which no-one ever does.
might as well just shut everything off from the circuit breaker
There is nothing wrong with taking precautions. This is one that may help reduce damage to goods.
Have you actually tried plugging them in from another socket?
The question I have is this my responsibility or the landlords fault? Shouldn't there be surge-guard devices placed on external powerboards to the unit/building to prevent this from occurring?
It's your responsibility, and No.
Also how would I prevent this from happening in the future?
Either get a half decent surge protected power board or perhaps a faraday cage.
After unsuccessful pursuing the Landlord, the next thread will be "Electronics Devices Broke during Recent Lightning Storm…is God responsible or me?"
Holy Shit, man…
You're not a Wizard of any (profanity) description, much less one of the calibre of Pinball Wizard.
That's one of my worst nightmares. I do run everything through protected power boards though.
Shouldn't there be surge-guard devices placed on external powerboards to the unit/building to prevent this from occurring?
Nope
Also how would I prevent this from happening in the future?
Unplug them.
Lightning rods.
A lightning rod on your place won't save you if the power line 2 doors down the street gets hit instead.
get a better conductor then…..
Firstly, pinpoint where the surge originated from (power point or phone line), make an itemised list of your faulty devices (together with a quote or examples of pricing) and hit up your service provider. It would also be beneficial to obtain a copy of the weather report for your area (Bureau of Meteorology - BOM) showing activity on the day.
I used to own a PC store years ago and would always get a few instances / year of users, obtaining quotes for replacement units after weather events.
Nothing to do with the landlord.
Obviously the architect, surveyor, engineer, builder and landlord's fault.
Architect - could have prevented this by using non conductive materials throughout and specifying.
Surveyor - should have realised lightning can strike in this location.
Engineer - did not specify for a Faraday's cage and massive earthing blocks.
Builder - built the damn thing
Owner - owned the damn thing
You're about to get a huge payout.
Forgot the LNP for abandoning the FTTP network!! Now we're back to dealing with Cu cabling & its associated shortcomings.
You forgot to add God to your list. He created the lightening in the first place
No he didn’t. He said lets there be light!
Damn you beat me to it.. can I **** **** ****.
You forgot God creator of lightning strikes.. gotta always go back to the source.
I feel your pain OP*, but I don't think you can claim from your landlord.
*On Thursday night after a lightning strike:
- TV no image, still has sound and can see menu/channel…so probably a video input issue. Almost 15 year old plasma though
- modem no longer powers on
- keyboard randomly about 5 keys no longer work.
Hopefully nothing else I haven't noticed yet…
Can anyone recommend a surge protector or would any from somewhere like Bunnings do? I googled and appliances online have 4 options, and OZB history shows a few also.
Apparently although some advertise "connected device warranty", from what I've read, you have a better chance of winning the lotto than a claim being successful.
For the most part, I just use cheap surge protectors. Mostly so I can say I have done my part to minimise damage, the rest I claim from contents insurance.
My HiFi set goes through a very expensive surge protector cause it is irreplaceable.
Surge-protectors aren't for surges, they only protect sensitive equipment against (rare of specific type) spikes. Likely wouldn't have saved OP's gear, but we will never know. Nor know about yours.
Could still have followed advice given and otherwise alluded to in that previous thread of yours - computers and other sensitive equipment includes televisions, and modems.
Of now ridiculous five TV's throughout the house, four and some other gear linked to one UPS, arranged in way for power to go off and stay off when any power disturbance. Internal relay gaps not as good as unplugging stuff, but more convenient and pretty useful in event of nobody at home when storm hits.
Other gear connected to second UPS, more regularly arranged.
Thinking stuff through, not a bad idea.
OP*, I also feel your pain (and observe the stupidity of your post).
*Long time ago now, surge not spike, lost TV, VCR, a great old GME power supply. Separate incident of very near lighting strike, fried front-end tuner section of a great old home theatre receiver. That was sad :(
This is a strange one. Went off to trip, with appliances switched off on all wall switches.
Came back to discover TV, cable modem, Gigabit switch in two separate locations in same room, all fried, even though all switched off at wall. However, the power packs for the modem and the switch were fine.
Thinking maybe, the likely explanation is - the lightning must have occurred right above the house - so that the voltage differential from the lightning to the ground must have ionised the air, and caused the damage. Otherwise, hardly any plausible explanation for this. Luckily, the computers were all OK and on the same line.
Real weird.
Like your UPS idea, but don't like replacing dead UPS batteries :-)
Switches off, not as effective as unplugging, sadly. Contact gaps not enough for higher voltage.
Front-end of tuner section mentioned above, went for reason in your second paragraph.
Receiver stupidly still on with storm approaching. Watching the light show, as per Brisbane pastime (quite a lot of that has been going on in past week, hasn't happened for a while). Electricity in air, palpable. Lightning bolt 100 metres down the street, scared proverbial 6 months growth out of everyone in the neighbourhood.
Upside, no one died/decorated -
Lichtenberg Figures
@[Deactivated]: when you say switches off,not as effective as unplugging
do you mean switches off from power point or power board?
@ATTS: ? Can do whichever is most convenient. Unplug powerboard from the wall, or individual plugs from the powerboard. Thorough includes antenna plug from wall plate or the TV/other input.
I never unplug my devices!! Now I know better lol
Lol haha I know right.. I was just like yeah I am good.. chilling while electricity is flying all over the place.
OP is good to go, lightning never strikes the same place twice, very safe now
It's the landlords responsibility 100%. I would raise a claim with the landlord or the property manager. The landlord should've taken every measure to be at the property and take the lightning strike himeself/herself. Thus saving you and your electronic equipment.
Smite me almighty smiter!
We once lost a big TV and two computer monitors. That was before surge protection was fashionable LOL!! Now we surge protect, but in real bad storms will unplug.
Is your landlord Zeus God of Lightning and manly chests.. if yes then yes he is responsible for your destroyed goods and you must sacrifice a sheep as an apology for annoying God Zeus.
Your responsibility. You should have your own surge protected power boards.