Had an electrical storm the other night
 

Sometime around 1am. Heard a big boom and lots of what sounded like something being fried. Long story short was that the satellite TV is out (they need to come and fix it), a few circuit breakers got tripped at random and Ive tried everything to power up the satellite boxes and TV's in the bedrooms and they wont turn on. Either we got hit by lighting or a massive power spike occurred.

My daughter has a recirculating floor fan in her room that wont turn off. It wont stop spinning even if i turn the power off.

Did it fry the TV's since I cant power them up?

I gotta be honest with you Paul....if that fan runs with NO power, you may be on to something.

You should check everything electrical in your house (air, furnace, appliances). It can do a lot of random damage and you may have to get your insurance company involved. Probably should can your agent and let them know you had a lightening strike.

Steve

Call your insurance company, then a good electrician. You have lots of fried house wiring.

Agree with others, sounds like whole house got fried.
We got lucky few years ago. Only lost 1 tv and cable box. Then week or so later found out the oven circuit board got hit too. Strange the fridge was ok being on the same outlet. Guess wasn't strong enough to hurt the motor.

There can be hidden damage. Contact insurance for guidance.
Our area had a lightning strike a few years ago that turned an 8" dia. tree into kindling. A house 200 ft away had all sorts of strange electrical issues including a battery operated wall clock that started running backwards.:confused:

yep, a near lightning hit can do funny things.

Check ALL your electrical stuff you may find quite a bit.

Lightning never strikes twice in the same place........it doesn't have to, once will do it.

That's a fallacy, of course. Lightning will do whatever it wants.

George

Is South Elgin conduit or Romex?

We had a lightning strike here and in a course of about six months it got the big screen TV, Jenn-Air range, dishwasher, central A/C, garage door opener and my well control box.
I did talk to my insurance agent after the A/C went out but decided not to file a claim.
I'm glad I didn't because about a year later we had a storm that caused damage to my roof. Insurance paid to replace the whole roof on my house as well as my shop. They even replaced the metal roof on the screen porch. My old roof had been on for 15 years and would have had to be replaced by now so I figured I came out ahead.
Have a reliable electrician check out your whole house.

Hang on to that fan... but keep it in her room. And no nose wiggling in the house. Sounds a bit Bewitched to me. ;)

Several years ago I had a whole house surge protector installed. Would this solve the lightning problem? Jon

Power surge: Probably yes. Parts inside the surge protector can sacrifice themselves depending on the severity. George K. can explain it better.
Hit by lightning: Probably not. Lightning is highly destructive and unpredictable. It can take multiple paths (outdoor lights, gutters, roof vents, cable wiring, gas/water lines) and go around it.

Fiedlerh is right........surge protectors are designed to snub surges and transients on the power line. If the outside power line is affected by lightning, they MAY snub the surge/transient on the incoming power to protect your electrical loads.

A near lightning strike consists of many thousand amps (or more...who knows?) and that creates a nasty electric/magnetic field in the area. That in turn can induce high voltages in unprotected wiring (like the cord from the surge protector to your device) and resultant destruction.

Antennas and cabling also are a mechanism by which destructive energy levels are sent to your TV, etc

Think about the EMP device referred to in the movie "MATRIX"....that's the idea but EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) is known to us created by a nuclear blast. Lightning is nature's version.

George

We are conduit.

I talked to an electrician locally. He said with the modern day homes, the breakers are different. My house was built in 2005. Since Im a complete idiot when it comes to electricity, what he told me made sense and I cant repeat simply because I didn't understand it. He siad hed love to come to the house but didnt want to charge me to chase what might be a ghost.

Basically he said that if any wires were fried and we still had power and since the conduit acts as a ground, he told me to run a vacuum in the outlets where the breakers tripped. If the wires were fired, than it would trip the breaker again because of the load from the vacuum. Thats what I did and nothing tripped.

I think we are fine minus a couple of $250 TV's and an old fan. All of which I just replaced tonight.

Surprisingly enough, no guidance from them as a source of replacing anything. State farm which holds my home owners insurance told me that since lighting didnt strike my house, there's nothing they would cover.

That's the beauty of conduit. You can always pull new wire!
From your original description it sounded like it hit your house. I guess it depends on how they define "hit your house". Can they prove it didn't? At least damage appears to be minimal. Could have been worse, a house in Crystal Lake was set on fire.

A friend's house (the guy who order my GA new) got hit years ago. The cable junction box was found across the street. His young son got zapped (but uninjured) when the lightning jumped from an outlet to his bed frame. A TV quit but turned itself on and started working a week later. Strange stuff.

That's the problem with lightning. Just being near a strike is enough to induce quite a bit of current on some lines and enough voltage in some cases to destroy electronics and wiring. It's why being under trees is a bad thing, the lightning strike doesn't have to actually hit you to kill you.

Chances are insurance companies will only step up if it's proven that lightning did strike AND do visible physical damage to some place on the house, not just electrical damage as it doesn't require a direct strike to do that.

Paul, do you have an invisible fence for the dog? 20 years ago when I built my first home we had one installed and every time there was a close strike that wire would collect the charge & bring it into the house - one time blowing the IF box clean off the wall. Several times we tripped the breaker, one time fried the outlet.

If you do - isolate that outlet as much as possible to protect the rest of the house.

I had a near lightning strike. Voltage came in on the speaker wire from exterior speakers on my deck. Blew up my stereo and a bunch of surveillance equipment.

Insurance company (Erie) covered a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment. No questions asked. Just give us the bills and if we want to come look at the fried stuff save it.

I would change carriers. State Farm only denies claims in my experience.

I wish we did Chris, but the answer is no.