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Larry Frank
10-07-2009, 8:29 PM
Well, on monday night I was set to watch the Packer and Vikings and all of the sudden the lights went out. Of course my cable went out and when the lights came back on, my cable was out until the following morning.

I live a ways outside of a town and it is not too unusual to have a power loss. I have never really had much of a problem after the power came back on. This time was different. The power went out with a thunk. When it came back on, I had lights in the house that would not come back on. Checking the breakers, I had several that had blown. I tried to reset them and they tripped again. I checked out things in the house and found that I had a blown surge protector that was causing that breaker to trip. Another breaker was with the whirlpool bath. It seems that it probably blew the circuit boards in the unit. The new part is $400. I also had a bunch of the GFCI in the house trip. I also had the electronic bathroom fan timer stop working and had to replace with a regular switch.
I should count myself lucky as none of the computers or AV equipment was damaged but they were on expensive surge protectors. Also, everything in my shop still works.

I found out today that a drunk driver sheared off a power pole about a mile from my house. I am getting a police report and will file with my insurance company and they can try to get money from the driver. I will still be out my deductible which is $500 but if someone else fixes the whirlpool, the total loss will be probably close to $1000 or more.

Has anyone else had a similar problem and is there anyway short of a whole house surge protector to prevent problems

John Pratt
10-08-2009, 9:54 AM
I had a whole house surge protecter put in and only cost $500. Glad I had it in the spring when lightning struck the house. We could have lost everything. Luckily no fire and only cost another $500+install to have it replaced.

Robert Parrish
10-08-2009, 10:45 AM
I had lighting strike my pool heater last July and fried the 220 line going through the attic. Since it is still warm I haven't bothered to get it fixed, but I did have a whole house surge protector installed! Electrician coming tomorrow, that should cost me.