For those of you who have been wondering about my unexplained absense, my house was struck by lightening last week. There was only minor structural damage and an electrical fire that was quickly extinguished by myself (I'm giving the whole family extingushers for xmas this year). I did lose both cable convertors, my cable modem, my network hub and a few peripheral pieces of computer equipment, (anything hooked directly to cable got fried), about a dozen light bulbs blew as well. Now the reason for this post is to stress the importance of surge protectors on animal enclosures. Not one uv bulb, heat lamp, aquarium filter or anything else plugged into a surge protector was affected. It is amazing how something we don't think can ever happen to us, can happen. It's the little precautions that we can do in advance that can protect our little friends who count on us for care.

BTW, if you want the crap scared out of you in a way you can't even imagine, have lightening strike 10 feet from you, my whole body tingled and I had a headache for two days.

Buy surge protectors if you don't already have them.
Buy surge protectors if you don't already have them.
Buy surge protectors if you don't already have them.
And of course.......Buy surge protectors if you don't already have them.

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Visit me at www.jaysreptiles.com

Hello,

That is great advice! I use surge protectors on all the tanks. Not because of lightning, but because they have more outlets for my timers and heating devices!

how much do they cost, there is a chance of thunderstorms here every day for the next 6 days

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MY PALS
0.1.0 BALL PYTHON-JERRI
0.1.0 AMEL. CORN-BAYBE
1.0.0 GHOST CORN-BOSS
0.0.1 BLUE TONGUED SKINK-DOUGLAS
2.1.0 CATS-POJO, CHEDDAR, SAMMIE

Whoa! Im glad youre O.K. Jay I use surge protectors on everything in my house because it just safer in general great advice.

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-Ron

If Im not back in five minutes...just wait longer!
-Ace Ventura

That's the best part, you can pick them up at Home Depot or Lowe's for about $3.00. All they really are is an extension cord with multiple outlets and a built in "fuse" that can be reset if overloaded. I usually buy ones with no more than 5 outlets, because the more outlets you have the more your tempted to keep plugging things in.

Consider them cheap insurance, If an overloaded lightbulb, in a metal reflector was sitting on top of a metal screen on an enclosure with water in it.....well just imagine what could happen to your pet.

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Answers are great. But I prefer questions!

Visit me at www.jaysreptiles.com

Great warning Jay and something everyone should consider. My experience with surge protectors started when a simple power surge fried a 250 watt Ceramic Heat Emitter! The surge protector would have been a LOT cheaper than replacing that Ceramic Heat Emitter!
I have them on everything now!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Jay,

First off, a surge protector is not fool proof. Even a surge protector will blow as well as equipment with a direct lightning hit. Also not all surge protectors are the same. Look for the joules rating. The higher the better.

Secondly, when buying routers or hubs, or network cards. I found out last year after taking a lightning strike, that blew my bedroom TV and my router, that Belkin equipment has a life time warranty.

Steven

Jay....wow !! Glad you're ok and back with us. I bet you had the tingle even before the strike. since we're like the lightning mecca (in Florida) I've been told if there's a storm and your hairs stand up or you start to tingle.....move.... cause lightning gonna hit where you are. But my goodness if you moved and didn't move far enough....it could have been worse.

Glad you're OK Jay!!!!!! Sorry to hear about the damage to your house and computers. It sounds like it could've been A LOT worse.

Thanks for the advice about the surge protectors. We get thunder and lightening storms a lot here in summer.

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Andrea

Glad your ok Jay...good advice there.

Haha I know that feeling...I was rock climbing about three years ago and had just got to the top and was roping my dad up the climb when I could see a storm coming down the valley (I was the tallest thing in the valley at this point) so I told my dad to be quick, he wasn't quick enough...a bolt of lightning struck some gear that I had left on the floor again about 10ft behind my....strange sensation to say the least lol....the gear I had left was all fused together and heavily distorted. I learnt my lesson.....send my dad up first in future...

I found that out too....Camping in July about four years ago (can't remember which valley but in the swiss alps somewhere), we had just got to bed when the storm started...when we woke up there was 2-3ft of snow on the ground..in July!! That put an end to any climbing for a week lol

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