Did a power surge kill your equipment? We tell you how to compensate for the damage

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Published: 01/31/2020

Reading time: 2 min

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My acquaintances and not so acquaintances regularly turn to me for advice on what to do and where to go if expensive equipment burns out due to a power surge. Of course, the main question is whether compensation can be obtained from a government agency. Working as an engineer in energy supervision (FGEN), I know first-hand the situation both from the consumer’s side and from the electricity supplier’s side. Realizing that the situation is relevant for many, I decided to write detailed instructions on how to behave correctly in such a situation.

Who will compensate for the damage: we determine the culprit
How and where to contact
Evidence of guilt

Action 1. Notify the dispatcher

The very fact of a power surge must be recorded in a voltage change report indicating the date and exact time. Therefore, it is important to immediately call an emergency or on-duty team.

You must provide your full name, exact address, as well as the type of utility service provided of inadequate quality (in this case, electricity).

A message about the provision of utility services of inadequate quality can be conveyed in writing or orally (including by telephone), and an emergency dispatch service employee is required to register it.

If the emergency dispatch service employee does not know the reasons for the violation of the quality of the utility service, he is obliged to agree with the consumer on the date and time of checking this fact. In this case, the inspection must be scheduled no later than two hours from the moment the consumer receives a notification about the violation, unless a different time is agreed upon with the consumer. Upon completion of the inspection, a report is drawn up.

The telephone number of the dispatcher of the Revdinsky district of electrical networks (24 hours a day) is 5-03-21. Reception - 5-19-45. Address: st. S. Kosmonavtov, 10.

Electricity consumer rights

Guarantees of reliable supply of electrical energy to consumers are prescribed in Art. 38 Federal Law No. 35 “On Electric Power Industry” dated March 26, 2003. According to this article, the electricity supplier must:

1 Provide the consumer with electricity and its quality, which meets the requirements of technical regulations.

2 Do not disconnect subscribers from the network if the consumer does not have arrears in paying for electricity.

3 Carry out repair work to restore power supply.

4 Warn consumers about power outages at least 5 working days in advance.

5 Carry out preventive maintenance on power lines and electrical equipment.

In accordance with GOST 32144-2013 Interstate Electrical Energy Standards, the mains voltage should be 230 V. Deviations from the norm are acceptable, but they should not be more than 10%. Almost all household appliances are designed for this voltage. If the voltage in the network is higher than normal, this can lead to equipment breakdown.

From a legal point of view, electricity supply is a service. The consumer pays a certain fee every month, and the seller provides him with an uninterrupted supply of electricity. In this aspect, the quality of service delivery plays an important role. They are directly related to the work of electrical engineering. According to Art. 14 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”, the seller is responsible for the provision of low-quality services. In our case, this means that if household appliances burn out due to voltage surges, then the service provider must compensate the damage caused to the consumer.

If power surges occur as a result of emergency situations (strong wind, hail, lightning), then you do not need to count on payment of compensation.

Action 2. Write a statement

Now you need to write applications to the management company and the resource supply organization requesting an opinion on the causes of the voltage drop.

The culprit in this situation could be:

energy supply organization (in the Sverdlovsk region - this is IDGC of the Urals OJSC - Sverdlovenergo): if the reason for the failure of household appliances was the “poor quality” of the supplied energy;
organization servicing the common property of a residential apartment building (management company): if the cause of the voltage drop was a malfunction in the intra-house electrical networks (from the boundary of responsibility with the energy supply organization to the apartment (residential building) of the victim, or including the intra-apartment network if the victim is not the owner of the premises) ;
a third party (for example, a contractor who carried out major repairs): if his actions led to a failure in the electrical network of the house (apartment).

It is necessary to contact in writing the energy supply organization and the organization that services the common property of the residents of the apartment building (if the victim is the owner of a private house, it will be enough to contact the energy supply organization), who will give their conclusions about who is to blame for the incident.

Important: such applications from citizens are subject to mandatory registration and consideration.

As a rule, these organizations conduct a survey (inspection) of the scene of the incident and draw up a corresponding report. The applicant must be notified of the inspection findings no later than 30 calendar days from the date of application.

In addition, we recommend enlisting the support of your neighbors if you need to attend court.

Who will compensate for the damage: we determine the culprit

Power lines and other special devices for supplying electricity to residential buildings are the responsibility of the supplying organization. This company is responsible for a stable voltage supply within 230kV +/-10kV. Such figures are enshrined in law in GOST 29322-2014.

To ensure that the network is in good working order, city lighting workers are required to regularly check the equipment that distributes and supplies electricity, as well as carry out work on covering contacts and busbars. Timely procedures eliminate sudden power surges due to short circuits or circuit burnouts.

But there is still no complete protection against a possible drop. A surge can occur due to a fallen tree, lightning striking a power line, or improper work carried out by other organizations and individuals. The culprits of the incident, in addition to the supplying organization, may be:

Management Company;
workers of gas, water supply, sewerage services;
neighbours.

In the event of a power surge and damage to equipment, the victim will have to identify the culprit independently in order to present financial claims to him.

Action 3. Assess losses

Losses caused to the consumer's property must be confirmed.

To do this, you need a conclusion from the service center that your equipment has failed due to a voltage surge. You will also need a document confirming payment for the repair of “burnt out” household appliances. If it is impossible to repair it, then you need to contact the services of an appraiser. They will calculate the amount of damage based on the cost of the “lost” equipment, taking into account wear and tear. The cost of this service will subsequently be included in the statement of claim.

How to protect equipment

Getting into such a situation is extremely unpleasant, and legal proceedings can last for months, so we will tell you what to do to prevent household appliances from burning out due to a power surge. The cheapest solution is to install a voltage relay. They are often called "barriers". You set the upper and lower permissible voltage limits yourself, in addition, you can set a restart delay in case several surges follow. This is also necessary to protect the compressors of refrigerators, air conditioners and freezers, because repeated starts and sudden stops are harmful to them.

Relays can be either individual and are inserted into a socket, and the plug of the device is plugged into it, or centralized and installed at the electricity input to the apartment on the DIN rail of the electrical panel. This is the cheapest option to prevent your appliances from burning out.

Paired with a relay, you can install a varistor on a DIN rail; it is a semiconductor analogue of a spark gap and will “short-circuit” the line during a surge, protecting household appliances.

A more reliable and expensive way is to install a voltage stabilizer either on specific equipment or on the entire apartment. Please note that, unlike previous options, this will cost you an order of magnitude more. Depending on the power and type of device. The cheapest option is to install a relay stabilizer.

Carrying out an examination

Why and when is the examination carried out? An examination is mandatory when the case is gradually approaching the court, and a conclusion from a disinterested party - an independent expert commission - is necessary.

You can conduct an examination either by court order or at your own discretion. The cost of services of service centers of this kind starts from 1000 rubles. The commission examines the household appliance and establishes the fact of a power surge. A burnt-out household appliance should be inspected before it is repaired, otherwise the conclusion will not be considered valid.

If the examination must be carried out by court order, then it will also be necessary to provide witnesses and draw up a report or list of damaged household appliances. Usually these are residents of neighboring apartments who have suffered the same misfortune.

How to connect a stabilizer to a TV

Carrying out the connection procedure yourself is quite simple without the involvement of specialists. At the back of the device there will be a special block consisting of 5 connectors. Usually their circuit is the same (from left to right): input phase and zero, grounding, zero and phase going to the load location.

Connection rules or how to protect your TV correctly:

Before starting work, be sure to turn off the power.
It is necessary to install an additional RCD near the meter to extend the life of the equipment.
The electrical network must have a grounding circuit.
It is prohibited to install a stabilizer in front of the meter.
It is not recommended to connect the equipment immediately after it has been brought into the house from the cold. The condensation inside must evaporate, otherwise the service life of the device will decrease.
If the protection has a power of less than 5 kW, then you need to connect the protective device directly to the outlet. This option can be used in garages or in a country house.

How do power failures occur?

Each residential building is powered by three working phases: working, “zero” and grounding. To ensure that the voltage in your sockets is 220V instead of the standard 380V for most external electrical networks, each apartment is connected through an electrical panel to one working phase and a neutral wire.

During operation, the heaviest load falls on the neutral wire. This is explained by the fact that each apartment is connected to different phase wires, but they have a common neutral wire. The worst thing happens when many consumers plug in powerful electrical appliances, such as a vacuum cleaner, electric kettle, microwave oven, etc. At this moment, there is a sharp jump in the load on the wires, which can lead to a violation of the integrity of the wiring. Due to the high current required to meet the needs of a large number of consumers, old wiring, designed according to the standards of the last century, overheats, which leads to its burnout.

As a result, the network breaks down. Moreover, the break occurs at the weakest section of the network, for example, between the line and the electrical panel. As a result of a break in the neutral wire in this section, the apartments connected to the switchboard are connected to each other, which leads to a sharp jump in voltage to 300-380V.

Possible consequences

Every device connected to the network during power surges can fail and burn out. High voltage exceeding permissible limits leads to cable fire and other dangerous situations.

IMPORTANT! To reliably protect buildings from dangerous lightning strikes, it is necessary to use lightning protection devices. This is an important safety precaution.

Therefore, during its operation, stabilizing surge protection devices . Other types of electrical appliances usually withstand minor interruptions and deviations (10%) from the standard value of 220 V without damage.

Why does the voltage jump?

Short circuits of power lines;
Thunderstorms;
Mechanical impacts on network elements causing their damage;
Deterioration of contact between conductors, the occurrence of phase imbalances.

Direct consumer of electricity;
A representative of the organization on whose balance sheet the house is located;
Inspector of a supervisory organization;
Representative of the company responsible for supplying electricity.

The commission determines whose actions provoked sharp fluctuations in network voltage. The culprit may be the consumer himself, as well as other persons, from employees of the supplier organization to conditional builders, craftsmen who made repairs in the apartment and accidentally damaged the wiring.

Receipt of the final report, which records the reasons for the incorrect operation of the power grid;
Preparation of a written statement demanding compensation for damage. The application is written in an official form approved by a specific organization. If an organization refuses to provide such a form, free recourse is permitted. This application is submitted to the reception company as correspondence, accompanied by an individual number. If the guilty person does not agree with the requirement and refuses to pay compensation, justice will have to be restored through the courts;
Receipts and other documents confirming the price of broken devices are prepared. They must be presented in court to confirm both the ownership of the property and its value;
If household appliances can be restored, it is better to do it right away, paying out of your own pocket; the legal battle sometimes drags on for several months. If the court takes the applicant’s side, then all costs associated with repairs will be compensated.

Expert opinion

It-Technology, Electrical power and electronics specialist

Ask questions to the “Specialist for modernization of energy generation systems”

Ways to complain In the Nizhny Novgorod region in mid-2003, six residents who suffered from a power surge, with the help of the court, managed to obtain compensation for the repair of burnt household appliances - from 200 to 750 rubles. Ask, I'm in touch!

Procedure for compensation for damage due to power surges

It is not always possible to immediately determine that household appliances have stopped working at home due to a power surge, so if you suspect that the appliances have failed due to poor-quality power supply, use the following instructions:

Contact your neighbors and find out if their electrical appliances connected to the network have been damaged due to a possible power surge. This action will allow you to make sure that there was a power surge and not only your equipment was affected.
then call the emergency team , which will record the fact of a power surge by drawing up a report on the voltage change that has occurred, indicating the date and exact time. When calling the emergency team, you must report the incident to the emergency dispatch service. This can be done in writing or orally, but in any case it is necessary to record the fact of the appeal. When making an oral complaint, check with the dispatcher for the registration number of your complaint in the log. When conducting an inspection, an inspection report is drawn up, which records the damage caused to the citizen’s property.

ATTENTION: the act must be drawn up and signed no later than 12 hours from the moment the consumer contacted the emergency dispatch service, in 2 copies, one of which must be given to the consumer.

identify the person responsible for the power surge . This could be a resource supply organization, a management organization, a homeowners' association, a contracting organization for the maintenance of common property, or a third party, for example, a neighbor carrying out repairs at his place. It is necessary to contact the specified organizations so that they give written opinions on who is to blame for the voltage surge that occurred. It should be taken into account that the responsibility of organizations for the condition of electrical networks is delineated: someone is responsible from the panel house, and someone is responsible outside the apartment building. If the citizen who carried out the repairs is at fault, then responsibility lies with him for the damage caused.

IMPORTANT: if there was a power failure, the organization is obliged to issue a document confirming this, since special equipment at substations detects power surges.

Contact the appropriate organization to have your electrical networks and equipment that is out of order inspected . It is better to apply in writing under the mark on your copy.
You can also draw up a report with your neighbors about the damage caused, indicating the date and exact time, describing the damage to the equipment. If possible, photographs and video recording will not be superfluous. In addition to the neighbors, the chairman of the apartment building must sign the act.
failed equipment can be taken to a service center , which will give an opinion on the causes of the breakdown, i.e., that the cause of the breakdown was a power surge.
when the equipment cannot be repaired, an independent appraiser can calculate the amount of damage.
After collecting all the documents, you should submit a written claim to the guilty party so that he compensates for the damage caused.

ATTENTION: the claim must be served against a mark on your copy or sent by registered mail.

If there is no response to your claim within 30 days, you can file a complaint with Rospotrebnadzor, other authorities, or immediately file a claim in court for damages.
After the court makes a decision in your favor and it comes into force, you must submit a writ of execution to the bailiffs to force the collection of funds from the guilty party.

To briefly describe your actions, you must record the date, time and the fact of equipment breakdown due to a power surge; identify the person at fault who caused such a surge or who provided inadequate power supply services and then take action to recover damages. The main thing is to establish and confirm a cause-and-effect relationship.

Claim for compensation for damage caused by a power surge

If the consumer’s demands are not voluntarily satisfied by the guilty party, then a claim should be prepared in court for damages.

The following information must be indicated in the claim:

the name of the court to which the person is filing the claim;
Full name of the plaintiff, residential address, you can also indicate a telephone number, email. mail;
cost of claim;
information about the defendant: for an individual - full name, residential address, as well as date and place of birth, place of work, one of the defendant’s identifiers, namely, SNILS, TIN, identification document details (series and number), for individual entrepreneur OGRNIP, series and the driver's license number and vehicle state registration certificate, if they are known to the plaintiff.
the document will be called a statement of claim;
in the reasoning part, in support of his claims, the plaintiff must set out all the circumstances of the case with references to evidence and indicate how his rights were violated, and also indicate the calculation of the amount that the plaintiff asks to recover from the defendant;

IMPORTANT: if the claim was not sent, you do not need to falsify evidence and attach a claim that was supposedly sent, but in fact was not sent, otherwise you may be subject to criminal liability.

In the operative part of the claim, the plaintiff must clearly formulate his demands, for example, to recover 5 thousand rubles from the defendant in favor of the plaintiff. to compensate for damage caused by voltage changes in the electrical network;
after this, a list of documents attached to the claim is listed (copies of inspection reports, photographs, conclusions of organizations, conclusions of a service center, etc.);
At the end of the claim, the date, signature of the plaintiff and the transcript of the signature are indicated.

ATTENTION: indicate in the text of the claim that you approached the defendant with a claim that was not satisfied. Attach a copy of the claim to the claim, order drawing up a claim in court from us, and also watch a video with advice from a lawyer

Carrying out an examination

Selection by main characteristics

To find out which voltage stabilizer to choose for your home, you need to study the plate located on the back of the TV. It will indicate the technical characteristics of the device for which you need to purchase the correct stabilizer.

Selection by phase

The rule for choosing a suitable model is simple - if a single-phase network is used in the house, then the stabilizer must also be single-phase. This is a must. If a three-phase network is installed, it is advisable to purchase a single-phase 220 V model for each phase. In this case, they will cost much less than when purchasing one three-phase model.

By power

The main characteristic of the device is the power of the stabilizer. To calculate it correctly, you need to base it on the power of the TV itself. Usually the indicator is in the range of 100-400 W

In addition, you need to buy a device that has a power reserve of approximately 30%. This way you can avoid many problems when a strong voltage drop occurs.

Heating in a private house. Part 1

Hello, dear ones! Today I would like to talk about modernizing the heating system in a private house. I can’t fit everything into one post, so I’ll divide it into parts. In the first part I will look at the periphery, in the second I will go through the materials, in the third I will talk about assembling the boiler room.

Let me make a reservation right away that I am not a professional, I have not carried out thermal calculations, everything is based on personal experience and on the advice of a person who has assembled heating systems in more than a dozen cottages. Looking ahead, I will say that the system works, it works well. I will listen to criticism, but there won’t be much point in it, since the system is already assembled, there is no way to change anything.

If this were new construction, it would be much easier. I had to dismantle the old system and install the new one. The old system was extremely reliable, but very archaic. The only parameter that could be controlled was the temperature of the coolant on the boiler. Iron pipes, cast iron radiators...

First, we dismantle the floor on the first floor. We remove the linoleum, remove the OSB boards, remove the tongue and groove boards and joists, and clean it down to the concrete base.

Thanks to my father for his great help. We started this work on January 3. All winter I was engaged in work not related to heating - since the floor was removed, it was necessary to remove communications as much as possible into the new floor, so I completely redid the water supply and sewerage systems, and added electrical wiring. But this is not particularly relevant to this post, so let’s return to heating.

Base. Two-pipe system, radiators around the perimeter, on the external walls. Basically nothing special. There are 7 radiators in the base, divided into 2 arms for ease of installation. The main line leaves the boiler room with a 26x3 pipe and is divided through a tee into two arms of a 20x2 pipe. From the main line to the radiators there are bends with a 16x2 pipe. One caveat. On one of the arms there is a jumper made with a 16x2 pipe between the supply and return. This is necessary so that if the thermal heads close all the radiators, the pump does not go crazy from the inability to pump the circuit.

First floor. Radiator heating using a radiant scheme. That is, the main line (26x3 pipe) from the boiler room comes to the distribution manifold, and from the manifold to each radiator there is its own pipe (16x2). The advantages of this system are that there is a single pipe going from the collector to the radiator, there are no connections that will be walled up in the screed, and it is possible to turn off each radiator separately. Picture from the Internet.

By the way, I strongly recommend that before pouring the screed, you take very detailed pictures of the location of the pipes with a tape measure. It would be very disappointing to break a pipe, for example, when installing thresholds.

Second floor. Radiator heating according to a radial scheme, the same as on the first floor. On the second floor we had to cut a screed, lay pipes from the collector to the radiators in it and fill it.

Bathrooms. There are heated floors in the bathrooms on the first and second floors. Moreover, it is made separately from the warm floor of the first floor, that is, the main line from the boiler room (pipe 20x2) comes to the distribution manifold in the bathroom of the second floor, and from the manifold - the circuit to the bathrooms. This was done so that, for example, in the off-season or in the summer, you could turn off the heated floors in the entire house, but leave the heated floors in the bathrooms.

Both the warm floor and radiator wiring are made of Pex-Al-Pex metal-plastic pipe. All connections are made using press fittings. Rems EcoPress press pliers with replaceable nozzles for 16,20,26 mm with TH profile were purchased. Cool stuff.

Before laying the underfloor heating pipes, extruded polystyrene foam 50 mm thick was laid. Even though the base is heated, I still wanted to cut it off, since the temperature in the base is not high, 16-17 degrees is enough. In addition, extrusion had to raise the floor level. After laying all communications, a semi-dry screed was poured. Its main advantage is the speed of installation. In 3-4 hours the team filled 90 sq.m. In general, it is a good technology, the floor is quite flat and does not require additional leveling.

All radiators with thermal heads. The solution is old, but reliable and quite affordable. Allows you to maintain a stable temperature in each individual room.

In the next part I’ll tell you about the choice of materials and if I forgot to write something in this part. I will try to prepare the next parts as quickly as possible.

How to choose a voltage stabilizer

To protect the TV, you need to add about 30% to its rated power (this will achieve better stabilization). If the power of the TV is 200 W, then the stabilizer should have a power of 260 W. To find out the operating range of the input voltage of the equipment, you will need to make the appropriate measurements yourself or by seeking the help of an electrician. A multimeter or voltmeter is used to collect data.

The electrical network is characterized by a drop in voltage in the evening to 165 V. In order for the picture to appear on the monitor in good quality, without loss of sound, precise stabilization is necessary.
Linear stabilizers will not be able to provide the necessary stabilization power. There will also be additional noise, which causes additional discomfort when watching TV. In this case, you need to buy a semiconductor or inverter stabilizer, with which the output voltage will be 165 V with a power of 300 W.

What to do if your equipment burns out?

First, approach your neighbors, maybe they have the same problem, because together it is much easier to obtain compensation for damage from the energy company than separately. Having assessed the overall scale of the damage, you will be able to work with specific numbers.

In the second step, you need to find the root cause of the power surge. To get started, contact your district or city power supply office. Each substation must have monitoring equipment installed that can detect the slightest voltage surge. At your request, management employees must issue a document confirming or refuting the presence of a failure at the specified time. You also need to identify the culprit of the incident. For example, if the neutral wire in the switchboard burns out, then the culprit of the incident is the housing office. In the case where the neutral cable was damaged due to construction work, the culprit is the organization that carried it out.

Sometimes there may be more than one person to blame for a failure. This is explained by the fact that from the power plant to the final electricity suppliers one has to go through many sections that belong to different organizations. For example, in the Moscow region, the supplier of electricity is, which, through its own network, transmits electricity to the network of the Moscow City Electric Grid Company (MGEC), which, in turn, transmits energy to the regional substation. At the substation, electricity is converted and transmitted to residential buildings. This is where the DEZ area of responsibility begins.

A failure can occur in each of the areas described above. The cause of the power surge may be the negligence of DEZ employees, repair work of any of the government organizations and private companies operating in the city. There are also frequent cases when the culprits for a sharp surge in voltage in three or four apartments may be the residents themselves, who, contrary to the recommendations of the contracting company employees, place the maximum load on the intra-house network.

However, practice shows that most often the culprits in such incidents are employees of public health services. This is explained by the fact that most often power surges occur as a result of a break in the neutral cable in the area of the electrical panel, and as you already know, this is the responsibility of the local contractor. Don’t listen to the statements of the local leadership, saying that you yourself have exceeded all permissible loads here, and therefore you yourself are to blame for what happened. In accordance with current standards, the average apartment should be allocated 3.5 kilowatts of consumed electricity. This means that wiring arranged in accordance with the standards described above can easily withstand a load of up to 6-7 kilowatts, which is quite enough to meet the needs of an apartment equipped with all the necessary equipment.

In addition, many of us do not know that in accordance with the Decree of the Gosstroy of Russia dated September 27, 2003 No. 170 “On approval of rules and regulations for the technical operation of housing stock,” contracting companies must carry out scheduled inspections of engineering structures from October to May. If a local contractor ignored these requirements or performed a poor inspection (as evidenced by an examination of the breakdown), you have the right to shift the blame for the power surge onto his shoulders.

Why is low voltage in the network dangerous?

Most often, electrical appliances suffer due to a rapid and significant increase in voltage. But even a low value of this value can be dangerous for equipment whose operation depends on the engine.

ATTENTION! Deviations allowed by standards in the amount of 10% from 220V can significantly change the operation of laboratory equipment and medical diagnostic equipment.

At low voltage, the motor does not have enough power to operate normally, it overheats, and its windings may burn out. The most susceptible to breakdowns are household appliances with compressor units, such as refrigerators and air conditioners.