Lightning sucks.

Oh my, I wish you the best with all your gear and that things get back to normal as soon as possible, @Kier!

Yes, UPS is a must. I have 3 of them. All my essential gear is connected: routers, modems, switches, Macs, NAS devices, TVs...
 
Wow that's quite a strike! My brother's house has had 3 hits like that, over the past 20 years. Amazingly powerful
 
What I always recommended when I did house installs for those that work@home...

1) Whole Home Surge Suppressor: $150 (you can typically install yourself, there are pretty easy)
2) A 1500VA+ Backup/Surge Suppressor (APC & CyberPower are decent brands) anywhere you have more than $1000 worth of electronics equipment (computers, tvs, stereos, etc): $200-300 a piece.

This way any surge has to get through two devices before it gets to your most expensive equipment and data. It's cheap protection that can save you from a huge headache and downtime.

Be carful with lightning strikes, unfortunately the damage you see is typically not all there is. Be sure to get an outlet tester and test all outlets in your home, there can be damaged wires within the walls and an outlet tester can help find potentially more serious issues within your walls. Check the operation of all devices that have electronic boards (a/c, heater, washer, dryer, dishwasher, microwave, oven, thermostats, etc.), those electronics are cheaply built and even small surges can blow electronic board components.

If the cumulative damage you have adds up to more than your home insurance deductible, definitely make a claim and get a licensed electrician in to check EVERYTHING over. Lightning strikes can also weaken electronics. Something might still be working now but in a week or a month it might not be. Insurance companies know this and most will except future (within reason) additions to the same lightning strike claim.

Looks like you might have dodged the bullet on this one. I hope it turns out to just be some minor equipment.

This thread will hopefully help a few others out there better prepare for what seems to be inevitable in this business - the surge is coming!
 
Many years ago, we had a storm with a lightning strike that cracked the motherboard of my dot matrix printer. Oddly, that was the only electronic device that suffered any damage even though I didn't have any UPS protecting my other equipment. These days, all my work computers are on UPS systems.
 
Kier said:
So I had a lightning strike on or very near to my house today. Following an ear-splitting bang, all the power went off and there was a smell of smoke from the data cupboard under the stairs.

One or both of the ethernet switches had gone bang in a big way, with some of the connected patch cables badly fried.

View attachment 291895 View attachment 291893
View attachment 291894 View attachment 291898

Pretty much anything that was connected directly to the 24 port switch also died, including the living room TV, every Apple TV 4K box in the house, two stereo amplifiers... I'm actually still building a complete list of all the destroyed equipment. Thankfully my workstation and home servers were connected to the 10GbE switch and survived.

I'm not sure if there will be a video to accompany the upcoming HYS post, there's a lot of work to be done getting the house back to some semblance of working order.
Click to expand...
Kier, the UK Wiring regulations actually recommend surge protection at the incoming supply to your home now (consumer unit).

How modern is your consumer unit? It would be massively worth contacting an electrician and getting an SPD fitted to your supply if possible.
 
I have a couple of friends and neighbors who insist on getting generators for power backup, but I spent more to get an inverter generator. Same as with lightning strikes. So many devices in our homes have electronics now that even a small surge or the right kind of interference on a power line could damage these electronics. We have an older refrigerator (which we're replacing soon) but the washer, dryer, furnace, thermostat, TVs, etc. along with all the other electronics in the house are susceptible.

An inverter generator for backup, and whole-house surge protection, is a step in the right direction, and it can't hurt to leave all the additional surge protectors and battery backups in place even if upgrading protection further up the line.
 
YIKES!

I'm glad I have a UPS for both my modem/router on one, and my PC on another. That way if a strike happens, there's double protections against surges from both the UPS (router) -> modem/router end -> UPS (PC) -> PC.
 
The gear in my office is on a big APC UPS, as is the main network gear including the core switches and the internet router, which have their own UPS.

However, it would appear that the UPS for the networking gear didn't save the equipment, as a picture is beginning to emerge of a massive power surge going through that UPS somehow and hitting the (blue) 24 port Netgear switch, which promptly blew up and in the process delivered electronics-killing spikes to all the connected devices. Even some of the office equipment that I initially had thought survived was simply masking the problem by switching to their wifi connections.

Still waiting for a call back from the insurers' 'storm specialists'.
 
Kier said:
The gear in my office is on a big APC UPS, as is the main network gear including the core switches and the internet router, which have their own UPS.

However, it would appear that the UPS for the networking gear didn't save the equipment, as a picture is beginning to emerge of a massive power surge going through that UPS somehow and hitting the (blue) 24 port Netgear switch, which promptly blew up and in the process delivered electronics-killing spikes to all the connected devices. Even some of the office equipment that I initially had thought survived was simply masking the problem by switching to their wifi connections.

Still waiting for a call back from the insurers' 'storm specialists'.
Click to expand...
That really sucks, sorry to hear.

Hopefully at least after the headache is over you will be set with all brand new upgraded gear.

Get plenty of pictures of the damaged items. Organize a spreadsheet of everything damaged by room, include the replacement cost of each item individually, include a column for tax and shipping and the total cost to get the new item. Be sure to also include a column for url links the adjuster can quickly click on to see the item and it's sale price. Do this all before the insurance adjuster even shows up. They'll be happy you did the leg work and will typically give you exactly what you are asking for. Don't hesitate to put even the smallest of items. If you miss a few things it's not unusual, you can just send it in at a later date. It will typically be a couple months before they start to question additional items being added to the claim.

Edit:
If there are things you need to replace immediately and can't wait on, go ahead and get them and just keep the receipts. The insurance company will not hesitate to reimburse you for items you have already paid out of pocket for.
 
Last edited:
Kier said:
The gear in my office is on a big APC UPS, as is the main network gear including the core switches and the internet router, which have their own UPS.

However, it would appear that the UPS for the networking gear didn't save the equipment, as a picture is beginning to emerge of a massive power surge going through that UPS somehow and hitting the (blue) 24 port Netgear switch, which promptly blew up and in the process delivered electronics-killing spikes to all the connected devices. Even some of the office equipment that I initially had thought survived was simply masking the problem by switching to their wifi connections.

Still waiting for a call back from the insurers' 'storm specialists'.
Click to expand...
Hmmm
Hope they help you.
That's going to cost a lot to replace everything.
 
I'd never thought of backup units being suitable for surge protection, especially at that level of protection. But I also haven't shopped for them in quite a while.

I would think that an approach where a whole-house surge protector at the breaker panel would be a first line of defense, with other surge protectors down the line (including the battery backups) to absorb anything that might get past the whole-house protector.
 
Okay. All these lightning stories actually make me really consider disconnecting my stuff once there's a lightning storm. Here in Argentina in Cordoba the lightning storms can be quite... extreme. Never experienced anything like that before in The Netherlands.

First time I experienced that I thought it was the end of the world or something
 
Consolation prize arrived… 🥃

IMG_0203.webp
 

Similar threads

Katsuro
XenForo Wonderful Search [Paid]
Replies
4
Views
1K
Katsuro
Katsuro
AndyB
Lightning bolt to new posts [Paid]
Replies
2
Views
531
AndyB
AndyB
djbaxter
  • Question Question
XF 2.2 Mobile view: Change lightning icon to Font Awesome New bubble
Replies
2
Views
470
djbaxter
djbaxter
Mr Lucky
  • Solved
XF 2.2 Lightning Bolt icon show on desktop as well as mobile
2
Replies
20
Views
749
MapleOne
MapleOne
Rom
  • Question Question
XF 2.1 How do I remove the "What's New" under the Lightning Bolt in Mobile? Disabling Whats New in ACP did not affect this one.
Replies
3
Views
532
AndyB
AndyB
Top Bottom