Topic: So, lightning struck my house....

[Scott S]

 I'll warn you right now that this will be a long winded post, so those of you with short attention spans just go ahead and reply "TLDR" and move on....

 About a month ago I was watching TV. There were some of those pop-up Summer storms we have in the South that day, but we'd been having them in the area for a week or two and I had barely seen a drop of rain at my house.
 Got up to go to the computer for a second and one "popped up" at my house. Withing about 45 seconds, it went from sunny to raining so hard I couldn't see the road in front of my house. There was a flash and an IMMEDIATE  BANG!!! . You've all probably seen or heard "close" lightning strikes before and there's always a lag between the flash and the thunder, even if it's just a few milliseconds. Not this one. It was IMMEDIATE.

 I said "Holy #$%*! That was right outside!". As soon as I got the words out of my mouth, every smoke alarm in the house went off. I got up and started looking around to see if the house was on fire. When I went upstairs to the bonus room I noticed that the A/C was getting sort of warm. Tried messing with the controls and noticed that the heat was on and wouldn't turn off! I had to go to the breaker box and pull the power. It had tripped that unit (there's the coil outside and the air handler/heater in the attic) and three or four random light/outlet breakers.

 The TV went out, but everything powered back up. But....no picture. I looked around outside for damage  and noticed that the door to the crawl space had been blown open. I have an invisible fence for the dog and the control panel for it was blown to pieces, as was the lightning protector box right beside it. Both of those are housed in plastic boxes and the lids for them were 7-10 feet away. There's also a light bulb under there and it's receptacle was blown to bits as well. It also took out a GFI outdoor outlet and all the other outlets on that circuit.
 Back inside, I later found out that the TV was toast and it blew out 3 of 4 canister lights in the vaulted ceiling.

 Now....about homeowners insurance....
 I had recently had a contractor working on some moisture issues under the house and paying out of pocket. I also had a tree fall on the back garage and also paid out of pocket for that removal.
 I called State Farm and asked if any of that cost could be applied to the lightning strike. Nope....EVERY incident is separate and has it's own deductible. It's not cumulative, like medical.
 OK....what's my deductible? $1755?!?! What? Why?

 The replacement value of the home is 300-something thousand dollars. Crap, give me that much and you can have the house! The deductible is a half percent of that....or $1755.
 I just had my house appraised and it's not worth that. Not even close. Well, replacement value isn't market value. It's what it would cost if they had to come bulldoze it and rebuild. OK....surely that includes the contents, right? No sir...you have an additional $265K in coverage for that.
 So....if the house had burned to the ground you would have given me $600,000 but since it didn't it's going to cost me $1755??

 Lesson here: If your house catches fire, make sure it's going real good before calling 911!!

[Scott S]

 The damage:

 - The coil for the A/C unit and the circuit board. The A/C man rigged it to run the fan until the circuit board could be replaced.

 - An electrician had to replace a few outlets, some light bulbs and trace out several circuits looking for the damage.

 - I had to get a new TV, but the other one was ~10 years old and I was able to get a #$%*in' 65" 4K flat screen for less than I paid for the old one ten years ago.

 - Talked to Invisible Fence today (just recently had the power under the house restored so they can get to it)  and they'll be out next week. Since it's under warranty for lightning strikes (even though I've had it for 14 years), they'll charge an $85 service call and replace the circuit board and lightning protector for free.
 But get this....if the plastic boxes they're housed in are damaged, it's $500!!
 I was like "Are you kidding me? You'll replace the circuit boards and stuff for free but a little plastic box is $500?!".
 No idea yet if the copper wire in the ground was affected.

 The good news is that I'm now over my deductible in expenses and the fence repair will basically be "free".

 It's all been a very strange experience, especially learning about the homeowners insurance. And if I repair it all and lightning strikes again tomorrow, I'll be liable for my deductible again!

[vfourfreak]

I feel for you Scott. Having had a minor fire in my kitchen last year,with very little flame damage but lots of smoke damage, I have learned that French small print on insurance contracts is smaller than English small print.

Moral : Have insurance, but don't have accidents.

Kev

[calj737]

Have an electrician install a Whole House Arrestor in the main panel. Runs about $150 and protects everything. Also, double check the house has 2 grounded rods at least 4' in the ground wired to the panel. Never have this issue again...

[Tim2005]

Just wondering if you've worked out where the lightning hit? A few years ago my mate's place got struck, it hit the (big old) chimney, which was blown across his drive onto the lawn, without any damage to his car that was on the drive! Also it took all the electrics out, and all the carpets were scorched in front of every plug socket, he said it was pretty terrifying at the time.

[Scott S]

 My theory is that it hit the invisible fence and then went to the A/C and elsewhere from there. As it traveled up the A/C from the coil outside to the air handler in the attic, it took out the lights in the vaulted ceiling. The circuit that the fence was on also had several outlets fried. The TV is on a circuit that's near the one that the ceiling lights are on.

[74cb750]

That is some scary stuff. Glad to hear you are ok though.

[Terry in Australia]

Wow, that must have been scary! I wonder if your "invisible fence" is some kind of lightning attractor? Lucky it didn't hit your bikes! Cheers, Terry.

[Don R]

 My cousin had a house that was hit repeatedly. He finally moved. Once it took out every electrical part in the house. It even fried the joints in the foil wallpaper, dryer vent, phones, bulbs, sockets, even the air to air solar panels.

[ken65]

Ages ago ,i was sitting on the back steps, wifey near the bottom step and lightning struck out tv antenna about 6 meters from her. We both shat ourselves . The flash , boom ,crackle bloody everything was nerve wracking.  Stuffed up the TV, stereo , video recorder and insurance didnt cover it.  Bloody plicks.

[Scott S]

 Insurance has made the first reimbursement payment (well.....the check's in the mail, anyway....). Didn't question a thing so far.

 I was waiting to make a decision about getting the electrical fence repaired. My dog is old and trained and doesn't even really need the fence anymore. My GF is a K9 handler and we have a new working dog now. We just got the OK yesterday to train it to use the invisible fence, so I guess I'll go ahead with the installation. It's basically free now that I've met my deductible.

  The circuit board was repaired under warranty, even though I had the fence installed 15 years ago. When the tech starting tracing out the copper wire in the ground, he found a spot where the fence cuts through the woods that he believes to be the origin of the strike. There were one or two random breaks around the perimeter (I have about an acre, all total), but when he got to that one spot he saw the "ground was all tore up" out there and the wire was in about 30 pieces. Said it was cut or broken every 3 - 4 inches. He thinks that's the spot of the original strike.

[Terry in Australia]

Sounds like a "lightning attractor" to me....

[SOHC4 Cafe Racer Fan]

Damn, Scott. That sucks but I'm glad it was not worse.

30 years ago, I was driving in a severe tropical storm on Kauai.  The storm got so intense the bridges started getting overrun with run-off water.  We were listening to the radio when a lightning storm began.  There would be a flash pause bang.  We knew it was getting closer when the pause became much shorter.  Then the radio would go to static right before a strike. We were too young and stupid to stop driving.  We had a "danger close" strike where there was absolutely not pause between strike and bang.  All I saw was white light and the car lost traction. Since we were young (and indestructible), we survived unscathed. 

[Duke McDukiedook]

As long as you were not touching a metal object that was grounded to your car you should be OK in a direct strike.

[eigenvector]

There was a story a couple years ago about a rider on a Goldwing that got struck by lightning somewhere in Southwestern Washington.  So far as I know he was perfectly fine.  I've been through plenty of thunderstorms and hailstorms - have no desire to get struck by lightning.