w_tom wrote:



You had a 'whole house' protector. Did you have
protection? What was and how was earth ground installed? You
now admit that the building has two separate grounds.
Therefore not effective protection. Furthermore, you don't
discuss how that 'whole house' protector is earthed. Worse
still, you don't even try to learn about earthing. Instead
that simple paragraph from Zerosurge is everything one need
know about earthing? Somehow you don't need know anything
about earthing. The ground rods caused your damage.

In troubleshooting the computer damage years ago I found the phone and
power grounds unbonded. I bonded them because I'd known for 20 years
that bonding was required. I thought the lack of bonding was rare until
I talked to a telco man five years later. Still later, I read at the
Zero Surge site that the lack of bonding is a common and serious
problem. BTW, did you know no computer plugged into a Zero Surge
protector has ever been damaged?


You had damage to a
grossly undersized plug-in protector.

No damage to a protector. There was no plug-in protector for my TV and
stereo. I had foolishly trusted my whole-house protector.

That says you have no
effective secondary protection and may not have primary
protection either.

Don't you think there would be a lot more damage in this neighborhood if
the power company's lines weren't grounded?


You had a 'whole house' protector. But (as was posted
repeatedly and not answered): was it even earthed?

I wonder why I didn't see your question before. It's not buried in the
ground, but of course it's connected to the same neutral bar as the
power company's ground wire, eight feet from my ground rod.

Cows under a tree are the perfect example of multiple earth
grounds. Your building that has multiple earth grounds has
same problem. Four legged animals are more easily killed by
lightning that strikes a tree because the cow now becomes part
of the electrical circuit. Cow does not make a single point
ground. Cow then becomes the electrical path of a circuit
that includes the struck tree.



Yes a ground wire may carry transients from many miles
around. So will buried pipe lines. So will utility wires
that terminate in front of your house. All the more reason
why you must have a single point earth ground.

Most buildings are like cows in that multiple grounds are inevitable:
water supply, water drain, furnace, construction materials, power tool
lying on the ground. Your single-point theory has led to thousands of
deaths when people touched objects like faucets and phones during
thunderstorms. A building needs bonding. Sometimes it needs multiple
ground rods.


Assumed: a voltage between AC hot and neutral caused that
stereo damage. If true, the list of damage components would
be quite short and only where the power cord connects. Stereo
would have been easily repaired. But to have a long list of
damage, then a destructive electrical circuit had to pass
across the stereo. Destructive transients take the long path
when seeking earth ground. Typically destructive transients
enter on 'either or both' hot and neutral wire. Transients
leave on some other conductive path. If a transient entered
on hot and left on neutral, then the list of damaged
components would be quite short - and easily repaired. You had
extensive damage which mean it was a transient those plug-in
protectors don't even claim to protect from. 'Too many
damaged' components because transient entered on AC mains and
exited elsewhere.

Does electricity always choose the longest path to ground? Except the
rabbit ears, the only conductors within several feet of the TV were the
hot wire and the neutral. So now you're telling me the surge came in
through the plug and exited through a lightning bolt? I was watching
the TV. I saw no spark at all.


Third example. Again, let's assume the transient entered
via hot wire and left via neutral wire. Then those earth
ground rods (that you blamed) were not involved in stereo
damage. Your assumptions are wild speculation AND they
contradict each other. Which is it? Damage enters on hot
wire and left on neutral wire? Or the utility and code
required earth ground rods put a surge into your stereo - via
a wire those ground rods don't even connect to. Those
earthing rods did not contribute to any damage if they had
been part of single point earthing. But then you don't even
demonstrate a circuit path for your claims.

I'm the one who has been saying earthing had nothing to do with that
incident. Unbonded grounds had zapped a computer and modem years earlier.

And fourth is the little problem of where the electricity
went to after it left stereo on neutral wire. Where on the
neutral wire is the rest of a complete electrical circuit?
Just another problem with "the transient entered on hot wire
and left on neutral wire" theory. It has no science fact to
support what is speculation hyped into fact - just like
weapons of mass destruction. Where did current leaving the
damage stereo then go via neutral wire?

Back to ground through the breaker box. That's where current flows
through all my neutral wires. Aren't your neutrals hooked up?