Damaged electricals after power surge - no utility liability
Discussion
Recently we had a couple of power cuts one afternoon, affecting a number of houses on the estate and a large nearby shopping complex (could hear the alarms going off for miles around). They only lasted a few minutes each but on reconnecting or whatever we had some failures to domestic electricals; our oven hob blew a circuit board, a heat-blackened ipod power pack flew across the room, and our son's fairly expensive PC blew a few components inc RAM and motherboard. About £200 worth and that's just because we mended them ourselves.
After lengthy phone calls the power generating company (Northern Powergrid) say they are not liable as the damage "was not due to a deliberate act or negligence" and that "manufacturer's equipment should be designed to cope with a disruption to power supply"
Is this correct and legal? Anecdotal evidence from a colleague was that he'd heard of a whole street that suffered similar damage and all the power company offered (like us) was a letter to help claim on our own insurance!
Considering our son's PC was hiding behind TWO surge protectors I'm not sure what anyone can do to protect themselves from this, perhaps a topic for another forum!
Cheers all
After lengthy phone calls the power generating company (Northern Powergrid) say they are not liable as the damage "was not due to a deliberate act or negligence" and that "manufacturer's equipment should be designed to cope with a disruption to power supply"
Is this correct and legal? Anecdotal evidence from a colleague was that he'd heard of a whole street that suffered similar damage and all the power company offered (like us) was a letter to help claim on our own insurance!
Considering our son's PC was hiding behind TWO surge protectors I'm not sure what anyone can do to protect themselves from this, perhaps a topic for another forum!
Cheers all
Bluebarge said:
Insurance claim and buy some better surge protectors would be my advice. Plus check your house wiring - you can fit an RCD to prevent this happening.
I doubt an RCD will prevent surge as they work on current leakage via earth, perhaps there was a lightning strike ?I have invested in APC UPS units for my at work system used for pipe surveys and run from generator
and a large 8000va unit for office/home you can run pc systems and internet for hours in the event of failure.
I've had this happen all too regularly. I don't know whether it's due to a long running issue at a sub-station or bad cabling in the ground, but over the years I've lost count of the number of cuts and drop-outs we've experienced.
The last one was a sub-second cut at 2.40am a couple of weeks ago and on that occasion it took out my broadband router.
That's the second or third router lunched by a mains failure here and I've had several other electronic devices rendered useless by these incidents over the years.
I've had a UPS and surge protectors on my PCs, hubs etc. for years and I'd say the UPS has given the most protection. Surge protectors don't seem to safeguard against problems caused by momentary cuts.
I've now installed a second UPS just for the broadband router & modem, so hopefully that's the last time we'll lose a router.
I already knew the supply company wouldn't entertain any form of compensation for this sort of problem. Even when we've lost power for several hours, the compensation offered is laughable.
I have also just got bought an old mains analyzer off ebay for £50 which records drop-outs, transients and power cuts so at least I'll know next time we have one of these momentary cuts in the middle of the night. I'm going to keep a note of all the incidents from now on as maybe at some time in the future I can use it against the supply company and get them to do some proper investigation into the problems.
The last one was a sub-second cut at 2.40am a couple of weeks ago and on that occasion it took out my broadband router.
That's the second or third router lunched by a mains failure here and I've had several other electronic devices rendered useless by these incidents over the years.
I've had a UPS and surge protectors on my PCs, hubs etc. for years and I'd say the UPS has given the most protection. Surge protectors don't seem to safeguard against problems caused by momentary cuts.
I've now installed a second UPS just for the broadband router & modem, so hopefully that's the last time we'll lose a router.
I already knew the supply company wouldn't entertain any form of compensation for this sort of problem. Even when we've lost power for several hours, the compensation offered is laughable.
I have also just got bought an old mains analyzer off ebay for £50 which records drop-outs, transients and power cuts so at least I'll know next time we have one of these momentary cuts in the middle of the night. I'm going to keep a note of all the incidents from now on as maybe at some time in the future I can use it against the supply company and get them to do some proper investigation into the problems.
JustinP1 said:
Loose_Cannon said:
as the damage "was not due to a deliberate act or negligence"
What was it due to then?Power supplies such as those found in PCs should be CE marked if they were sold in the EU, although there is no strict requirement to actually test them for surges.
The problem is cheap chinese electronics which claim CE compliance when they clearly are not compliant and cost-cutting where expensive surge protection devices get removed from products during their production lifecycle to save costs.
A surge after a power cut killed my fax machine. The electric company said that the power supplied was within the laid down guidelines (IIRC 210-240v) so they had done nothing wrong and had no liability. Suggested I claim on my house insurance. I didn't but why should consumers suffer a possible increase of their insurance costs due to the fault of a third party?
Fartomatic5000 said:
Auto-reclosing breakers and lightning strikes.
Power supplies such as those found in PCs should be CE marked if they were sold in the EU, although there is no strict requirement to actually test them for surges.
The problem is cheap chinese electronics which claim CE compliance when they clearly are not compliant and cost-cutting where expensive surge protection devices get removed from products during their production lifecycle to save costs.
There's the European CE mark, then there's the Chinese CE mark which is almost identical but stands for china export rather than compliance to the CE mark which they clearly don't meet, or atleast that's what I've readPower supplies such as those found in PCs should be CE marked if they were sold in the EU, although there is no strict requirement to actually test them for surges.
The problem is cheap chinese electronics which claim CE compliance when they clearly are not compliant and cost-cutting where expensive surge protection devices get removed from products during their production lifecycle to save costs.
Jagmanv12 said:
A surge after a power cut killed my fax machine. The electric company said that the power supplied was within the laid down guidelines (IIRC 210-240v) so they had done nothing wrong and had no liability. Suggested I claim on my house insurance. I didn't but why should consumers suffer a possible increase of their insurance costs due to the fault of a third party?
No, email and the unstoppable march of progress did that 
geeks said:
Surge protectors usually come with a garentuee! Mine do and cover up to 15k's worth of damage/kit. Maybe contact them?
Always this, I have some servers that are on a protected power circuit with surge protectors, nothing is left plugged in PC wise overnight or whilst we are not there unless its plugged in to this.Thanks for the replies all.
I understand why the RCD tripswitches didn't work as their failure mode is earthing, but what is this UPS witchcraft of which you speak?
A google search reveals an enhanced surge protector, but can one unit cover the whole domestic system at the fuseboard or is it intended just for a few plugged in components like a PC group?
I understand why the RCD tripswitches didn't work as their failure mode is earthing, but what is this UPS witchcraft of which you speak?
A google search reveals an enhanced surge protector, but can one unit cover the whole domestic system at the fuseboard or is it intended just for a few plugged in components like a PC group?
Jagmanv12 said:
A surge after a power cut killed my fax machine. The electric company said that the power supplied was within the laid down guidelines (IIRC 210-240v) so they had done nothing wrong and had no liability. Suggested I claim on my house insurance. I didn't but why should consumers suffer a possible increase of their insurance costs due to the fault of a third party?
Because...otolith said:
Act of Zeus?
I'm a building services engineer and I work for a loss adjuster. I was involved in a claim where a power surge had affected a very swanky house. The power surge affected a number of appliances, but also the heating and ventilation controls.The most probable cause was a lightning strike on the power transmission network. We have a web based tool that allows us to check the weather conditions in a particular timeframe in any part of the UK. This confirmed there were several lightning strikes on that particular night.
As the distribution network operator was not negligent, we could not pursue a recovery from them, so the insurer had to cough up.
Loose_Cannon said:
Thanks for the replies all.
I understand why the RCD tripswitches didn't work as their failure mode is earthing, but what is this UPS witchcraft of which you speak?
A google search reveals an enhanced surge protector, but can one unit cover the whole domestic system at the fuseboard or is it intended just for a few plugged in components like a PC group?
You can get either. The latter would be much cheaper though, and do not require electrical alterations. The downside is they only protect individual items (or small groups of items). I understand why the RCD tripswitches didn't work as their failure mode is earthing, but what is this UPS witchcraft of which you speak?
A google search reveals an enhanced surge protector, but can one unit cover the whole domestic system at the fuseboard or is it intended just for a few plugged in components like a PC group?
Loose_Cannon said:
Considering our son's PC was hiding behind TWO surge protectors I'm not sure what anyone can do to protect themselves from this,
Power company is completely corrent. Because that damage is directly traceable to what you failed to do. First, if your thought adjacent protectors do that protection, then advertising has scammed you. Protectors adjacent to appliances can even make damage easier. Best protection at that appliance is already inside each appliance.
Your concern is a rare transient so large as to overwhelm protection already inside every appliance. And easily blow through any RCD. This rare and destructive anomaly means you must connectx hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly to earth BEFORE it enters the building. This well proven and superior solution costs about $1 per protected appliance. And is mostly unknown to consumers who are only educated by hearsay and advertising.
Actually, no protector does protection. The protector that even makes direct lightning strikes irrelevant (and costs about $1 per protected appliance) must connect low impedance (ie less than 10 feet) to what absorbs that energy - single point earth ground.
Well, you have plenty more to learn. This only introduced what was well understood over 100 years ago. Bottom line is this. Any proven solution means you know where hundreds of thousands of joules are harmlessly absorbed. Using concepts even demonstrated by Franklin in 1752. And rarely known to most homeowners.
Edited by westom on Thursday 23 July 00:24
westom said:
Power company is completely corrent. Because that damage is directly traceable to what you failed to do.
First, if your thought adjacent protectors do that protection, then advertising has scammed you. Protectors adjacent to appliances can even make damage easier. Best protection at that appliance is already inside each appliance.
Your concern is a rare transient so large as to overwhelm protection already inside every appliance. And easily blow through any RCD. This rare and destructive anomaly means you must connectx hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly to earth BEFORE it enters the building. This well proven and superior solution costs about $1 per protected appliance. And is mostly unknown to consumers who are only educated by hearsay and advertising.
Actually, no protector does protection. The protector that even makes direct lightning strikes irrelevant (and costs about $1 per protected appliance) must connect low impedance (ie less than 10 feet) to what absorbs that energy - single point earth ground.
Well, you have plenty more to learn. This only introduced what was well understood over 100 years ago. Bottom line is this. Any proven solution means you know where hundreds of thousands of joules are harmlessly absorbed. Using concepts even demonstrated by Franklin in 1752. And rarely known to most homeowners.
Drunk? High? Both?First, if your thought adjacent protectors do that protection, then advertising has scammed you. Protectors adjacent to appliances can even make damage easier. Best protection at that appliance is already inside each appliance.
Your concern is a rare transient so large as to overwhelm protection already inside every appliance. And easily blow through any RCD. This rare and destructive anomaly means you must connectx hundreds of thousands of joules harmlessly to earth BEFORE it enters the building. This well proven and superior solution costs about $1 per protected appliance. And is mostly unknown to consumers who are only educated by hearsay and advertising.
Actually, no protector does protection. The protector that even makes direct lightning strikes irrelevant (and costs about $1 per protected appliance) must connect low impedance (ie less than 10 feet) to what absorbs that energy - single point earth ground.
Well, you have plenty more to learn. This only introduced what was well understood over 100 years ago. Bottom line is this. Any proven solution means you know where hundreds of thousands of joules are harmlessly absorbed. Using concepts even demonstrated by Franklin in 1752. And rarely known to most homeowners.
Edited by westom on Thursday 23 July 00:24
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