Actually the whole house surge suppressor does nothing to help a lightning strike on/through your house. What you've probably installed is a MOV based surge arrestor which means that surge coming through the line will get damped and taken down. So, yes if the strike hits your on-pole transformer it will more than likely minimize the damage to your appliances. However, that case of a house being struck near you and burned down - well, the MOV does nothing for that because you aren't giving the strike an easier path to ground. it will still blow through whatever it is going to go through (trees, houses, etc) until it finds ground. A lot of houses burn down with a lightning strike for whatever reason. Not sure if its the lightning causing the fire or the resultant electrical charge frying everything in its path, but it is an issue when a strike happens. I think people need to understand that it isn't a lightning rod that gives protection. Get a qualified study and get some decent information. I don't see how you can decide that 'lightning rods weren't going to provide enough protection to ensure" your house wouldn't be fried, yet believing that a MOV sink will ??? The 'rods' or air terminals are above the roof line and tied together to down conductors to ground. The question is whether the installer engineered it such that its adequately installed so that the coverage attracts a strike to go that route vs another - not whether it works or not. Now whether you want to pay for it, can afford to pay for it or don't want to pay for it can certainly factor into whether one installs it and I can understand that. But to say that installing a MOV sink will protect yourself over a lightning protection system is a bit absurd. (BTW, an adquate LPS contains a MOV sink as well, but its the other components tied into protecting the entire house) The other components are potential lifesavers as it protects the building- the mov sink only protects the powered items within the building.

Hi everyone, I know i sound like a tape recorder but my craftsman 1/2 hp has been working fine for 3 yrs. Not sure what happened to the remotes, but they stopped working. I first tried replacing the batteries but after that didnt work i went out and brought two brand new up to date chamberlain klik3u universal garage remotes. Retail 40 bucks per. They say in the manual they are compatible to my garage opener which was manufactured in 1997. They wont program as well. My garage opens and closes fine. I guess im here to find out if anyone has any other trouble shooting facts to program because the "press the red button like a door bell, hit the button you want programmed" basics isnt working for me. I called chamberlain about the remotes and they basically told me go jump in a lake, all our remotes program fast and easy!!! I need help ppl. Plzzzzz

Last summer my garage door just decided to start closing only half way and then stopped. Every time I opened it or closed it, it would stop in a different position. I got the maunal out and went through the steps repeatedly to try to adjust the up and down travel. I tried to adjust the tension. It was very weird. Then I noticed a trouble light blinking on the side of the unit. I searched for trouble light code information and found that it was blinking a code that did not exist. I finally thought that this must be some computer glitch and did what I would do if my computer started acting irratic. REBOOT. I tried this with the garage door by unplugging it and plugging it back in. It didn't work the first time until I realized this unit has a 12v battery to operate the door openener during a power outage. So I took out the battery and unplugged the opener. Then I put the battery back in and plugged the door opener back in. The blinking code light was no longer blinking. I was able to reset the travel stops and the tension. It has functioned perfectly for 9 months. However, today while I was standing in my front yard talking with neighbors, my garage door just opened by itself. Nobody was in my house. Nobody was near my garage door remote. My wife's car was miles away.

> Unfortunately, lightning protection is a "no win" situation. Meaning that > no matter what you do it will be percieved as wrong by somone. If you ground > every piece of equipment in sight with a well oversized cable someone (your > customer, boss, wife) will say "everyone knows lightning goes to ground, no > wonder we lost $XXX worth of stuff". First, grounding equipment does not create surge protection AND can even contribute to surge damage. Please reread longer posts to appreciate that you just posted a worst solution and what professionals do not do. Second, according to posted half truths, then the 20,000 amps only four feet from the PC subjected that PC to fields that were decades stronger than what was posted. And the PC did not even flicker. Because those fields were too weak and too far away. As Franklin demonstrated in 1752 and as brickeyee confirmed, protection is about earthing a surge before it can enter a building. Protection is this: > The problem occurs in getting the current to ground in a safe and reliable way. >Even bends in a down wire can cause problems. Third, about fifty feet from a tree stands a cow. Tree is struck by lightning. Cow dies. So one who uses 'observation to know' then says the cow was killed by nearby lightning. Reality is always takes longer than soundbyte myths. Reality: lightning seeks earth borne charges maybe 5 miles away. Shortest path is not 5 miles across the sky. Shortest path is three miles down to a tree and four miles through earth. Current flows simultaneously through everything in that path. An electrical path that goes up the cow's hind legs and down its fore legs. Lightning that struck a tree was also a direct strike to the cow. But those who 'know only from observation' reiterating popular myths; insisted the cow was killed by a nearby lightning. Surge damage means current flows through to damage the device. Grounding equipment clearly provides no surge protection. *Diverting* means no surge inside the building. Forth: another example: How often is telephone service lost everywhere in your town for four days while they replace that switching computer? Telcos use protection that earths before currents can enter the building. Telcos (that suffer about 100 surges with every thunderstorm) must suffer no damage. Telcos don't worry about EMP. EMP causes no damage. No EMP protection is installed. Telcos connect a 'whole house' protector on every incoming wire to earth ground. That's it. Earthing surge current. Earthing so that even a cow inside the building is not killed. This stuff was well understood even 100 years ago. 100 years later, some still invent myths about EMP damage. Myths are easy to promote especially when we ignore all those damaged car radios, cell phones, and wrist watches. Fifth, grandmum asked if a surge would have caused damage. Only if surge currents were permitted inside the building - to hunt for earth via appliances. EMP is a myth promoted by the same concepts that make Limbaugh so popular. Routinely installed is one protector that costs about $1 per protected appliance. Earthed to meet and exceed post 1990 National Electrical Code requirements. A solution so effective even in 1950s houses with only two wire receptacles. Surge energy dissipated harmlessly in earth means no surge energy inside the house. Same technique used in munitions dumps so that lightning does not set off explosives. Notice how whole munitions dumps explode thousands of feet into the sky due to EMP from one nearby strike. EMP damage: only in junk science fiction.