Lighting kills...

[adrianh]

I wonder whether electric fence installer need to have some or other certification. It's amazing that there are so many people working with high voltage equipment yet they do not have the foggiest idea of basic electricity, safety and fault finding. One of the things that I find truly disturbing is the way in which many electricians wire up panels; its all just a mass of crisscrossing wires going from point to point with splice joints anywhere along the length of the wire. No schematic, numbers, markers nothing, just a lot of spaghetti.

[Dave A]

I wonder whether electric fence installer need to have some or other certification.

They do now - since 1st October 2012. Implementation has been a right royal stuff-up though.

[tec0]

I just thought I asked.

How many laptop computers did any of you lose due to lighting?

[adrianh]

None. I did lose a dial up modem once...long ago.

[tec0]

None. I did lose a dial up modem once...long ago.

I have been in IT all my life. Did you know I cannot recall a single notebook ever being damage due to lighting. Not one... Do you know how many desktop computers I have processed due to lighting per year. Well over a thousand computers in total. That makes it a minimum of just over a hundred desktop computers damaged by lighting in a single year...

[adrianh]

We hardly ever get lightning in Cape Town, it is extremely rare here for some reason. I remember living in JHB we would run and unplug all the computers when lighting started to strike.

[IanF]

I live in Joburg and have only lost a modem. I don't unplug or anything.