Bang!

That was interesting.

House got hit by lightening last night. Sitting watching tele and the
cable lines exploded, followed by the cable box, cable modem, tv,
network, router and one of my computers.

Never gone for a fire extinguisher so quick in my life, luckily it
wasn't needed.

Now for the insurance...

 

Hardly rained near us

However Laura is currently sitting in a dark office with no power, and
not likely to have any until at least lunch time (Brum Uni)

 

When I lived in SA, standard practice was always to unplug things at the
first rumble of thunder.
This along with surge protectors and the like.

I find it slightly amusing that people here appear to have no concept that
this might be a good idea - I guess because lightning is so rare.

We lost power for a bit yesterday, but the router, phone and other things
had been unplugged a fair while before that.

 

Naaaah, you trolling ****.

I've had TV, video etc replaced due to lightning strike/power surge
damage a few times.

Bizarrely, a claim for a double-glazed door panel too. InsCo reckoned
it had been weakened by a close strike, so who was I to argue.

 

Remember to check all the house power sockets as I have had one
totally melted by a nearby strike. In fact a complete check of the
house's electrics wouldn't go amiss.

 

I have surge protectors. They don't protect against ****-loads of
volts coming through your _cable_tv_ wire, traversing the satellite
cable and going on through your cat5.

 

Nope. More Than will happily pay out for a lightning strike.

 

Surge protector would have made little difference to me because that's
not how the electricity got in.

I'll be having words with Telewest about earthing their cables
properly.

 

I had a Selmar surge protector in line. It blew that too.

 

Good idea. And my fiancee's dad is an electrician as well so he can
have a look.

 

Know the feeling - sounds like you had a narrow escape - my folks house got
hit 7 years back - first thing I knew was a janitorial presence swinging on
my doorbell to tell me they were in hospital and the house had burnt
down.[1]

Turned out that @ an electricity substation 1/4 mile away had got hit,
wasn't earthed properly and the strike went down the power line via the
shortest route that happened to be in their direction, resulting in a very
large claim.

Lessons learnt:-

1: Make sure you have adequate building insurance to cover rebuilding -
measure external dimensions of the house and x number of floors and get them
to give you a figure. [2]
2: Make sure your contents insurance is adequate - if you are underinsured
they will 'average out' your payment proportionally ie: if you have £50k
worth of cover and your contents are worth £100k, assuming a total loss they
will only payout £25k.
3: Don't take the piss and get on the right side of the loss adjustor - they
can be *extremely* helpful and highlighted the 'averaging out' system of the
contents bringing in the claim just under the insured limit.

Good luck!

Buzby

[1] Only one part had been badly damaged - the worst was the smoke damage
[2] My old man had just switched insurance co and they made him do this - a
week into the policy they had to pay out a very substantial sum and didn't
quibble [3]
[3] The work took a year, but house was totally refurbished, new central
heating system, rewired, decorated etc etc

 

<makes note>

Do you know any local (good) plasterers or plumbers?

 

And you wonder why your kids have turned out the way they have.

 

Hence "unplug" and the use of "along with".

 

Ah - fair enough. When I say unplug I mean the telephone cable/aerial cable,
so in this case the er, cable cable.

 

I took 'unplug' to mean 'unplug from the mains' rather than 'unplug
every lead going into the back of it'.

 

Actually, More Than were really good. No quibbles about it at all,
they'll be arrange for someone from Dixons to cal to discuss what
stuff I want to replace them damaged stuff where there isn't a current
version available and the other stuff is just a direct replacement.

Should have it all by Monday.

 

heh, contract electrical engineer really. He designs the electrics
for hospitals and the like.

Dunno about plasterers but I found a good plumber.

Hitches Building and Plumbing, 47 Wherrets Well Lane, Solihull. 0121
704 1185.

Old bloke but bloody good. Replaced some seized on bath taps for me
and did a superb job and only charged 80 quid for 4 hours work[1].

He's not Corgi though, so can't do gas.

[1] I don't think he expected it to take that long but he stuck to
what he'd quoted.

 

heh, contract electrical engineer really. He designs the electrics
for hospitals and the like.

Dunno about plasterers but I found a good plumber.

Hitches Building and Plumbing, 47 Wherrets Well Lane, Solihull. 0121
704 1185.

Old bloke but bloody good. Replaced some seized on bath taps for me
and did a superb job and only charged 80 quid for 4 hours work[1].

He's not Corgi though, so can't do gas.

[1] I don't think he expected it to take that long but he stuck to
what he'd quoted.

 

heh, contract electrical engineer really. He designs the electrics
for hospitals and the like.

Dunno about plasterers but I found a good plumber.

Hitches Building and Plumbing, 47 Wherrets Well Lane, Solihull. 0121
704 1185.

Old bloke but bloody good. Replaced some seized on bath taps for me
and did a superb job and only charged 80 quid for 4 hours work[1].

He's not Corgi though, so can't do gas.

[1] I don't think he expected it to take that long but he stuck to
what he'd quoted.