Re: Never Underestimate the Worth of Surge Protectors on your Computer Stuff

Hi!

Yesterday morning, I awoke to the acrid smell of well-cooked electronics
components. I went into the living room in time to see BOTH of my
Dish-Net receivers (one is High-Definition, the other a standard DVR)
pouring out gray, acrid smoke. I went into the laundry room and turned
off the affected breaker.

Disheartening, isn't it? :-(

Several years ago I was sitting in the basement, using a computer when
suddenly the lights went way down in intensity--and almost out. Of course,
at the time, the A/C, stove, many computers, a laser printer and a few
dehumidifiers were all running, so there was a fair load on the wiring.

The lights came back up immediately, and I started shutting things down. My
first thought was a simple momentary brownout.

Over several days, the problem persisted on a lower scale. Whenever
something "heavy duty" was run, the lights and things on the opposing phase
of 110V power would dim out or quit running. Unable to find any problem in
my home, I called an electrician. The electrician couldn't find a problem
that night, and for some reason, nothing acted up.

I finally called the utility company and got an earful about how all the
problem was in my wiring, as it was very old, unsafe and outdated. I let
them put me off once and called again in the morning, this time demanding
that someone come out and have a look. They did so after much begging.

The neutral had burned in two...exactly *one* foot from the power pole. Even
when they saw that, they still wanted to bull*** around the problem.
Fortunately, after some replacement fuses, the only thing that I really
"lost" were some surge protectors and a TV set.

The electric company says they're not liable because a squirrel got
across the transformer -an act of God. I'm an electrical engineer and I
say poppy***.

I called for a claim form to be sent me anyway, and am prepared to fight
this all the way to court.

Good luck. For the cost of a new portable TV, I let it ride with them. Then
later on the city let their sewers get into a bad enough condition that they
collapsed during a heavy rain. The next form of drainage was every basement
that had floor drains, including mine. I lost a ton of equipment, computer
related and otherwise.

http://greyghost.dyndns.org/04flood/

(Or a more focused set of pictures, for the bandwidth limited:
http://greyghost.dyndns.org/04flood/rebuilding/old-lab-nw.jpg (640x480,
49KB)
http://greyghost.dyndns.org/04flood/rebuilding/wholesetup.jpg (640x480,
50KB)
....and only now are other things finally falling into place...
http://greyghost.dyndns.org/p3050008.jpg (640x480, 65KB) )

I filled out a detailed spread*** while going through equipment and filed
a claim form. The city's insurance denied everything as an "Act Of God",
which it most certainly was *not*. I would have taken them to court over it,
but I couldn't find anyone who would represent me in such a case. So in the
end I moved everything up to shelves, and took nearly all the electrical
devices off the floor. Around December of that year, I got to find out if
that plan worked. Fortunately, it did. I was able to go downstairs in a set
of water boots and shut things down safely.

Best of luck in your efforts to recoup some of your losses. At least your
computing equipment was spared.

William


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