Lightning Strike Repairs
 

Thought I'd share our recent experience putting our home back together after a lightning strike on Saturday afternoon. We lost our A/C, thermostat, garage door opener, sprinkler system, one computer and the cable box on one TV.

First, SECO was here within 30 minutes after we called. They checked all the lines coming into the house and all of the breakers. All were functional, so we began our search for repairs. BTW, SECO will be installing a surge protector this week!

Munn's got here after 8pm. As our home reached 86 inside, they replaced the "fried" control panel in the A/C and installed a new thermostat. We are so glad that we have them as our heating/cooling contractor. They were positively fantastic.

Through TOTV, we found our next two awesome contractors!

For the garage door opener, we tried to call Ro-Mac. No emergency numbers available - just leave a message. As I searched TOTV, the name James Anderson came up several times. Fortunately, he was willing to come out Saturday night. He quickly had the door opener taken apart, repaired, and reassembled, in addition to adjusting the springs because he didn't think they were right, checked the electric eyes, and reprogrammed our openers. He did a great job, and I'm grateful to everyone who has posted about him on TOTV. We'll use him from now on.

Today, as our final repair, James Baumgartner came to repair the sprinkler system. Another excellent professional we found thanks to the posters on TOTV. He showed up ahead of schedule, went right to work, and had the new control panel installed quickly. He programmed all of the settings, and checked the rain sensor as well.

Again, thanks to TOTV for this forum and the posters for their recommendations!

Thank you for your very informative post. I am glad that the folks who lived there weren't harmed and still have such a positive attitude.

Glad your up and running again
 

I am so sorry your house was damaged by lightening. It must have been a whirlwind dealing with it all. On the positive side, thanks for sharing the names of your contacts. It will help many of us if we ever have a problem with our doors, sprinklers and other stuff. We use Munn's as well and really like them. We also use RoMac and glad you gave an alternate person for emergencies.

Last month, a close lightning strike stopped our garage door opener from working. We unplugged the opener at the ceiling, gave it a minute to reset, and plugged it in again. And it worked :-) Later on, we followed up with attaching a $10 surge protector at the outlet to insure no problems in the future.

We also inserted a $10 surge protector at our sprinkler system outlet on the garage wall.

We had a lightning strike near us on July 4. I lost my Comcast modem and my network card. The modem which replaced on Saturday since they were out of modems at the office in Summerfield and my network card was replaced by MMD. I have the whole house protection from SECO at the meter.

The neighbor on the right lost her irrigation timer, her modem, a DTA box and her ADT system. She did not have the whole house protector.

The neighbor on the left lost his modem. He has the whole house protection.

Read into this what you want. But I think the whole house protection is a very good buy (or rent - depending on how you calculate costs).

Z

How much is the surge protector installed by SECO?
Thanks,
Maryanna

You can buy it for $250 plus. You can rent it monthly for $5 plus. You need to check with SECO for the prices.

When I moved here, you could only rent them for $5 something. When they finally decided to let you buy them I could have bought 2 of them. So I figure I have saved a lot of money by buying one. Some think that renting is better because they will be replaced if they blow out. I am still ahead if mine get blown out.

It is a $$$ thing for some people.

Z

Here's all the info from SECO's web site:

Protect your equipment from lightning with SECO Energy's Surge Protection System

Bill :)

was the damage due to a "lightning strike" or a power surge as a result of nearby lightning?

I suspect it was the latter.

Does the whole house surge protector really work? How does one know?

btk

A Q&A document from the link at the bottom of the SECO site noted earlier:

http://www.secoenergy.com/pdfs/Surge/MeterTreaterQA.pdf

If nothing else, I view their system as pretty inexpensive protection again most surges and spikes. Will it protect against a lightning strike? No. But in FL, it seems it would be better to have something like this versus having nothing at all.

Does it really work? Ours must be working - nothing's gotten toasted yet! :D But it's also kinda like the "deer whistles" idea that some people put on the front of their cars. "They must work - I haven't hit a deer yet!" :jester:

Bill :)

Have surge protectors installed OUTSIDE electrical panel and buy one with it's own LED light to indicate active!

Install surge protected outlets and then use surge protected STRIPS for all expensive electrical items...

..surge protection is a series / accumulated thing!

There are many posts elsewhere discussing Primary and Secondary surge protection for INDIRECT lightning strikes. Also, see the back issues of the POA Bulletin at POA4us.org and look for the Lightning Matters column.

The Sun reported a lightning stike on Sunday, July 28th on Souther Star Way. Does anybody have any details on what was damaged? Also interested in details on any other lightning strikes where you have first hand knowledge.

We got hit last year, 6 days after we moved in. We have and had the SECO surge protector, which will not Protect from a Direct Hit. We lost a lot. Homeowners Ins. took care of all but deductible. We considered ourselves very lucky!

Is the surge protector they just installed designed to cover your entire house? If so, how do we order one?