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Router fried by storm

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Monday nights thunderstorm took its casualties and fried my router. BT are supplying a replacement, to arrive today fingers crossed. 

What mechanism cooks them, a surge of input from the mains or a surge down the phone line? Both? 

I suspect phone line because no other devices have suffered although the rcd did trip. 

What is the best way forward to protect from a repeat? Surge bars and battery back up? Keep a spare router? Or is it as simple as the 1970s TV solution of unplugging the inputs during a thunderstorm? 

It all makes working from home rather difficult, these things never happen in quiet times do they. 

 summo 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

> What is the best way forward to protect from a repeat..

Just unplug all non essential electrics. Or even all electrics if you are right in the thick of it. 

 henwardian 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

You can get multisockets with surge protectors built in. They also come with an in and out for the phone line - this way you can protect from a surge via either orifice of the router.

 elsewhere 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Probably the phone line as it fried the router rather than dab radio, TV set top box, phone on charge, game console or whatever else is plugged in with an equivalent power supply.

> What is the best way forward to protect from a repeat? Surge bars and battery back up? Keep a spare router?

If you have a good mobile signal and mobile data contract tether to your phone as a mobile hotspot.

 Rick51 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

I lost a router about 10 years ago. The storm had got so close and was so intense that I was just considering unplugging everything when there was a huge explosion overhead, the windows rattled, car alarms went off and a 2 foot spark shot out of the router, which never seemed to work again. The next lightning strike hit a teenager in the local park, fortunately not killing him but certainly livening up his day.

 steveriley 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

Same happened to me in a storm a couple of years ago. I've used a multiple power block with a surge protector since, they're not too pricey. Good luck getting sorted!

 yorkshire_lad2 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

As others have said, multisocket with surge protection to include the phone line would be a good place to start.  If you fancy going one notch up, get a UPS with phone line protection.  This should protect your devices and phone line from the above mentioned lightning storms, and any peaks, troughs & cuts in the power supply the rest of the time.  How much you want to spend really depends on your setup: where you live/what sort of electrical supply and weather you get, what sort of equipment you want to protect, and the cost/hassle of replacing it if the worst happens etc.

In reply to all:

Many Thanks, surge protector with phone line protection purchased. I did not know such a thing existed. 

 Toerag 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

It's normally the phone line causing the issue - lightning either strikes a pole directly or lightning between clouds induces currents in long cableruns.  The result of either is a spike of voltage / current coming down the phone wire into the router and out via the mains frying everything in its path.  I've been to a lightning strike where there was nothing left of the box on the pole and the cable feeding it was burst open for tens of metres underground.  Every joint box, socket, and piece of customer equipment plugged in to the lines fed from the pole were destroyed. Trip switches and mains fuses in the houses also went off. Modern MSANs / DSLAMs in the network soak up a lot of this and the exchange equipment doesn't get blown up half as much as it used to, but I don't know about customer end stuff.  Anything having a lightning smack invariably dies after a few weeks or months if it managed to survive the initial hit.

 Tringa 12 Aug 2020
In reply to Presley Whippet:

A few years ago I was talking to a bloke in Ullapool the day after a storm in Gairloch which took out the router. It was a single very close lightning bolt - you could almost feel the air crackle; his take on it was the grid is generally well protected against lightning strike but the telephone network less, especially if the lines are old or more rural areas.

Our experience was the same as your - router gone, everything else OK.

Dave


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