Earlier this month, we had some intense electrical storms roll through North Georgia. One of them was kind enough to grace our house with a bolt of lightning.
As best we can tell, it hit a corner of our semi-attached garage. It broke a foundation wall, blew cement siding and trim off one corner (found in the yard, 20' from the building), dented gutters and downspouts, blew out some exterior motion lights, and put a 2" hole in the fascia next to one of the light fixtures.
But wait, there's more. Much more. The garage lighting circuit wiring was completely destroyed. The hot lead was completely unsheathed from it's insulation. Made it look like the wire had two grounds, rather than hot/neutral/ground. Pretty much every piece of sensitive electronic gear in the house was destroyed. Home theater equipment. Hubs. Routers. A few LED light bulbs here and there. The light switches nearest to the garage were blown out of the wall, charred, with the cover plates in pieces nearby. Alarm system completely destroyed. Anything with a hard ethernet connection was toast. 4 PCs, couple of TVs, PS5, etc. And, to add insult to injury: The coffee maker bought it.
Two of three vehicles parked nearby had their ECUs fried. One is in the shop now; when it comes back, we'll have the other one towed.
We were VERY lucky and VERY grateful there was no fire. All six smoke detectors (3 alarm system, 3 house wired) were destroyed. The boom and house shaking woke everyone up, so the smoke detectors didn't have a role to play, but made me realize it's a failure scenario that demands an unwired/battery powered detector.
Electrician was here for 4 days, checking wiring and pulling new wire where necessary. Alarm system vendor was here for a day. Pretty much every sensor, detector, panel, power supply, etc., burnt. All replaced.
Pad mounted power company transformer had to be replaced, as it was feeding the house with 273 volts when the fuses were replaced. Local EMC was terrific. They had a new transformer in place in less than 1/2 a day.
The telco's router was blown apart and burned. It even burned the UPS it was attached to. Current came to it via the ethernet cables, which looked like fried spaghetti.
We're getting it all cleaned up. Nobody was hurt. Insurance company (Auto Owners) is treating us right. In the end, we lost some work time (we work from home), but the important stuff, people, are all okay.
As best we can tell, it hit a corner of our semi-attached garage. It broke a foundation wall, blew cement siding and trim off one corner (found in the yard, 20' from the building), dented gutters and downspouts, blew out some exterior motion lights, and put a 2" hole in the fascia next to one of the light fixtures.
But wait, there's more. Much more. The garage lighting circuit wiring was completely destroyed. The hot lead was completely unsheathed from it's insulation. Made it look like the wire had two grounds, rather than hot/neutral/ground. Pretty much every piece of sensitive electronic gear in the house was destroyed. Home theater equipment. Hubs. Routers. A few LED light bulbs here and there. The light switches nearest to the garage were blown out of the wall, charred, with the cover plates in pieces nearby. Alarm system completely destroyed. Anything with a hard ethernet connection was toast. 4 PCs, couple of TVs, PS5, etc. And, to add insult to injury: The coffee maker bought it.
Two of three vehicles parked nearby had their ECUs fried. One is in the shop now; when it comes back, we'll have the other one towed.
We were VERY lucky and VERY grateful there was no fire. All six smoke detectors (3 alarm system, 3 house wired) were destroyed. The boom and house shaking woke everyone up, so the smoke detectors didn't have a role to play, but made me realize it's a failure scenario that demands an unwired/battery powered detector.
Electrician was here for 4 days, checking wiring and pulling new wire where necessary. Alarm system vendor was here for a day. Pretty much every sensor, detector, panel, power supply, etc., burnt. All replaced.
Pad mounted power company transformer had to be replaced, as it was feeding the house with 273 volts when the fuses were replaced. Local EMC was terrific. They had a new transformer in place in less than 1/2 a day.
The telco's router was blown apart and burned. It even burned the UPS it was attached to. Current came to it via the ethernet cables, which looked like fried spaghetti.
We're getting it all cleaned up. Nobody was hurt. Insurance company (Auto Owners) is treating us right. In the end, we lost some work time (we work from home), but the important stuff, people, are all okay.
