snip

Finally, a voice of reason; good post. If the earth-loss was the OP's
fault, shame on him, but if it was the grid side's fault, then shame plus
ALL BILLS to them!



I wish I had a whole house surge protector last week. We just had an apparently
LARGE power surge in our neighborhood that affected 4800 of PG&E's finest
customers. We have had a lot of interruptions (at least 2 or three a year) but
not like this one. It happened at 12:30AM and when it happened it sounded like
something actually hit the house. SWMBO and I got up and started looking
around and then it happened again. Over the next few days I talked to some of
our neighbors and everyone has lost some sort of electrical (or should I say
ELECTRONIC) device(s). All kinds of stuff from radios and tvs to battery
chargers/maintainers, microwave ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators. I'm sure
some people will use this as an excuse, but I'll bet that most of it is real.

As for me, PG&E will be getting a bill for two new computers that smoked the
power supplies and blew the motherboards and memory (One I had neglected to put
back on the surge suppressor after doing work in it, and one that was actually
ON a surge suppressor but it was a real cheapie), an air pump for our Select
Comfort air bed, a battery charger for my cordless tools, and our dishwasher.
All of which fried the electronic circuit boards in them.

I would hope that this is what whole house suppressors are designed to protect
us from. It would save me all the hassle of having to repair/replace all that
stuff, and of course all the hassle of filling out paperwork and hassling with
PG&E. Probably worth the price just for that. However I am still wondering why
only one circuit breaker tripped. Too instantaneous maybe??

Wayne