Surge Protection

[Bob Williams]

I know a previous Topic touched on this, but this one is about pricing.

A few days ago I ordered 2x Surge Protected powerstrips, with 2x USB sockets, from Amazon: 1x 8-gang for this desktop room, which has lots of peripherals attached, and 1x 6-gang for the lounge, TV and assorted equipment. The 8-gang was delivered alone, the 6-gang never arrived and after a few days waiting, Amazon refunded me for the 6-gang, with the stock choice of explanations for the non-delivery and refund.

From Amazon, the 8-gang was £25.59, including Standard delivery & VAT. The 6-gang was £19.14 including delivery & VAT. Amazon asked if I wanted to re-order the 6-gang, still without a real explanation of the first non-arrival. I had been in when our local RM Postie delivered the 8-gang. As I ask, he always takes deliveries to the usual neighbour, whenever we are out, but Postie stated this morning that he had brought no more packages after the 8-gang. I was going to ask Amazon why no 6-gang was delivered, but thought I would have a shop around instead.

Currys & Viking wanted £29.99 for the same Belkin  6-gang powerstrip (+ delivery). Another Amazon visit produced a price increase to £18.99 + Standard delivery. So I started digging and found this company:    http://pacetech.com/   £17.99, free delivery. I ordered it. The lost order will not mean that Steve Bezos is no longer the world’s richest man, but pacetech has some useful looking gear and I will use this delivery to judge them for future purchases. They are a UK company based in Birmingham and their servers are in the UK. Has anyone else dealt with them?

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

As I implied in the previous thread, not all surge protectors are born equal. If the Zena diode is only rated for less than a kilo joule then it will be a poor purchase. For example this one is NOT one I would recommend that you purchase. I’m afraid this is an area where you tend to get what you pay for!

[Bob Williams]

Both the Belkin powerstrips are 900 Joules Ed, but thanks for the information. In the previous thread, I gave a link I had found which gave me the information I needed, and which alerted me to the fact that my old powerstrips were (a) possibly worn out and (b) way less than half of 1,000 Joules. I think 900 Joules should be fine, don’t you? I purposely ignored all the cheaper, lower rated items: there are hundreds of those on Fleabay and Amazon.

The Belkin 6-gang is notified as being shipped already by Pacetech. Considering that their price was cheaper than any other outlet and free delivery, I will check it out tomorrow when it should arrive by RM.

” I’m afraid this is an area where you tend to get what you pay for! ” – Exactly my thoughts when buying anything. I have always known the difference between ‘cheap’ and ‘inexpensive’.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

Bob Williams wrote:

I think 900 Joules should be fine, don’t you? 

Quite honestly I do not know, which is why I use an UPS!

You can gain some insight from past records if you can find them, but it seems lightning tends to be unpredictable. If you lived in the East Midlands/Lincolnshire, 900 joules may only be worth one year’s protection for ‘average’ near misses. Elsewhere it will probably be good for a couple of years or more provided nothing hits the box down the road.

If your surge protector allows for the broadband/telephone to be protected then use it as this is by far the most likely route for a damage causing near miss. If you DO get a window rattling near miss it is probably worth replacing your Surge Strip anyway!

This is an area of voodoo magic and guesswork coupled with common sense.

[Bob Williams]

I DO live in Lincolnshire Ed! Only about 6 or 7 miles from the coast (as the seagull flies ?) We get a fair few thunderstorms, sweeping in from the North Sea. That’s bad news for my wallet!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Touch wood, we don’t get thunderstorms, the big downpour we had last Friday (flooded alot of places) was the first thunder and lightening we have had in a long time.

We found out my 9yo is scared of lightning. She was walking home from school ran in the house and went round shutting all the windows incase the lighting got us.

God only knows what that school teaches them! I wad going to say the window opening would be the least of her worries of the house was hit. Given the gable end sits on the edge of a drop off. But though better of it.

Back home in the 80s/may be 90s I remember a house being hit and it took the whole gable end off. Thought that was so cool at the time.

[Ed P]

Bob, I need to say that my views on lightning have been coloured by living twenty years or so in areas of almost daily electrical storms. Spectacular but frightening. Almost daily there would be horizontal bolts zapping below my flat setting off all the car and apartment alarms frightening all the pets out of their wits as a result.. Those residents without protection normally paid a price sometime within the year. My advice to you would be to take a straw poll of friends and neighbours to get a feel for how often they or an acquaintance got zapped then use that to set how much risk you are prepared to insure against.

[Bob Williams]

Steve, I know a lot of children are scared by lightning, but as you say it’s all about education. Teach them what it is all about and it takes the mystery and fear away. Having said that, I must have been a weird kid: according to my parents, as a toddler I wanted to get up to the windows to see it! It has always fascinated me to this day, I just have to go outside and watch from the porch. Last year there was a real belter of a storm on the way from the West, I just had to drive up to the top of Kenwick Hill. (a Lincolnshire Mountain, 49 metres above Sea level!) To watch that storm come over the Wolds from Nottinghamshire, I stood out in the pouring rain in just shorts and wellies, (no shirt) just an unbelievable thrill for me.

SWMBO was not impressed when I walked in, wet through and grinning from ear to ear.

Ed, I have always loved mountains and spent a lot of time in Bavarian and Austrian Alps. The storms in those mountains are something else. I would love to watch lightning flickering between peaks and the noise of thunder, echoing between peaks, was deafening. Nature at its most powerful, I loved it.

Told you I was judged weird, but I have a gson and youngest gdaughter who are exactly the same with thunderstorms. Gdaughter is seriously weird, would carry monster spiders out of the house for mum as a toddler. She now picks them up and talks to them, has several webs in her room and won’t let dad touch them.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

Bob I love lightening. I can remember being in Italy in 1990, sitting on the hotel balcony  and watching,  for my first time, real fork lightening. My mum and nan was hiding away and I was just amazed at watching these lines hitting the sea and bouncing back up.

I contacted think I’ve seen anything like it since. The closest would be France about 7 years ago. Loire valley mid August, 2 weeks of 35 degrees (gets hot inland) was broken one day by the mother of all storms. Much like the Italian one, but in France it only lasted an couple of hours. I’ve not experience rain like that before. It was like a bath tap.

Probably the Italian experience wasn’t as good as my memory recalls. But it made an impression on my.

Also my now 21 yo boy (man) is still terrified of the stuff, as a boy he would get under his bed. He probably still does lol.

The wife isn’t to keen on it either. I just think uk lighting is boring in comparison to what I’ve seen abroad. I can’t actually recall seeing folk lightening in the uk. And I’ve spent a fair few months “camping” in the good old British countryside. Looking back I think every night, and day, it rained.

Side note, my 18th birthday i was on a exercise in Scotland, and woke after a brief sleep in a steam. That wasn’t the first or last time! Nothing like getting your dry gear wet, and burying your wet sleeping bag.

[Bob Williams]

Well this thread has become timely – we had another really big storm today, a monster! Timetable: before noon SWMBO and I drove to Mablethorpe, it was sunny and warm (21ºc) and BBC Weather gave no rain until 5 pm for our area, definitely no T-storms. We usually park at the southern end of the town to miss the crowded holiday car parks: Queen’s Park sometimes has free road parking, but it’s only £1/hour in the P&D. (Double the ticket time, for Blue Badges) That end of the beach is quieter, there’s a couple of cafes, Queen’s Park has one cafe, boats and plenty of children’s attractions, plus a small train, a large paddling pool and a big Crazy Golf pitch. Walking around the big lake is best avoided unless you don’t mind Duck and Geese poo on your footwear! Many years ago, I fell in there after a heavy night out. Not recommended…??

We walked north along the beach to the main part where all the Grockles congregate, intending to make it right up to the North End and a cafe whose owners are family friends. That’s about a 2-mile walk. It became cloudy by about 1:30, then began to rain as we turned back. By the time we got to the car, we were soaked – we were both in shorts and thin tops. Drove home and from 2 miles inland, it was dry. Had a delayed lunch and at about 3:30, a massive storm hit the village. Hailstones, torrential rain which caused a 3″ deep river of water outside our lounge window, all the guttering overflowing, lightning which moved closer and closer. I was outside in it as usual, neghbours looking through the windows and shaking heads. An hour later, sun comes out and by now, the roads are dry, as if nothing happened. A mate in Louth says that there was just the edge of the rain there, soon stopped. That’s 2 miles down the road.

One bonus of the beach for me today, was the amount of washed-up flint flakes. For most of this year, and for the last few years, a team of specialists from the Netherlands have been “Renourishing” all Lincolnshire beaches. A huge Dutch dredger out at sea, pipes up seabed sand to the beach, a team takes it right up to the Coast Path and then reditributes along the beach, piling it up. The idea is to stop coastal erosion and it is working: there are sand dunes developing all along the beach. The sand works better than concrete, it absorbs the waves at high tide and the sea drains back down through the sand. My ‘bonus’ is the flint: I have always been interested in Prehistory and there are flakes, scrapers, arrowheads and hand axes being thrown up from out in the North Sea. I find it amazing that I can pick up a piece of worked flint, that may have been handled last by another human thousands of years ago. I also find it a little disappointing that very few others also find that fascinating, but that’s another story.

Yet another History lesson!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

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