Tesla approved installers taking us for a ride?

[arg]

much more likely to get a huge oak crashing down from lightning

You do have to be a little bit careful not so much about direct lightning strikes as earth potential differences between buildings when there's a lightning strike somewhere nearby. You've got (say) 30,000 amps entering the soil at one point and spreading out in all directions, giving a voltage gradient through the soil, so earth potential in different buildings will be different if they are different distances from the strike.

In my experience you are usually OK with UTP ethernet - the 1500V isolation in the interfaces at each PC is enough. Things that are earth-referenced (intercom systems, old-school coax ethernet, RS232 wiring etc.) can give big problems that are very difficult to protect against with surge suppressors and the like. Indeed, inappropriate use of surge suppressors can make things worse.

 

[pgkevet]

You do have to be a little bit careful not so much about direct lightning strikes as earth potential differences between buildings when there's a lightning strike somewhere nearby. You've got (say) 30,000 amps entering the soil at one point and spreading out in all directions, giving a voltage gradient through the soil, so earth potential in different buildings will be different if they are different distances from the strike.

In my experience you are usually OK with UTP ethernet - the 1500V isolation in the interfaces at each PC is enough. Things that are earth-referenced (intercom systems, old-school coax ethernet, RS232 wiring etc.) can give big problems that are very difficult to protect against with surge suppressors and the like. Indeed, inappropriate use of surge suppressors can make things worse.

Thanks for that - I really hadn't thought about indirect strikes etc - good info. I assume the likelihood of a strike is still more about higher ground? There's a 600 ft ridge starting 1/4 mile south and a 300 foot directly behind the house...

My mum (now deceased) claimed that as a child pre war she was chased around their living room by ball lightening - a weird phenomenon

 

[RichieC]

Not sure if people are aware of this, but if the reason that you want the Tesla wall connector is because of "the button" to open/unlock the Tesla chargeport, there is an alternative. EVChargeking sell Type 2 cables with the Tesla button included that can be used with other chargers that have a type 2 socket - Unique Tesla charging cables with Tesla integrated command button - evChargeking

You can even order them in any length cable that you want...

 

[WannabeOwner]

much more likely to get a huge oak crashing down from lightning

We had 4 lighting strikes at my parent's house. My parents owned it for over 40 years, and they all occurred in the last half dozen years of ownership. Loads of significant trees around, none quite close enough to "fall" on the house.

Socking tall Wellingtonia a hundred yards or so from the house (tallest thing around of course ...) was the first to be hit. Nothing left, except for the bottom 6 feet of the stump. The whole of the rest of the tree was converted to shrapnel, when the sap turned instantly to steam, and covered the lawn for a good distance around.

Huge Lebanon Cedar tree was hit twice. First time split the top and we had it craned off (proper Boy's Toy ...), second time did for the rest of it.

The house was struck too. It had lightening conductor and metal strip down the side of the building. BT had routed all the phones in the house with external cable, tucked neatly behind the conductor strap as it went around the exterior. All of them blew up. There were also some wall lights, internally, near the conductor strap. Some sort of induction wrecked all that wiring.

On a separate occasions we had a BT isolator blow up with incoming spike, during a thunderstorm nearby.

 

[pgkevet]

We had 4 lighting strikes at my parent's house. My parents owned it for over 40 years, and they all occurred in the last half dozen years of ownership. Loads of significant trees around, none quite close enough to "fall" on the house.

Socking tall Wellingtonia a hundred yards or so from the house (tallest thing around of course ...) was the first to be hit. Nothing left, except for the bottom 6 feet of the stump. The whole of the rest of the tree was converted to shrapnel, when the sap turned instantly to steam, and covered the lawn for a good distance around.

Huge Lebanon Cedar tree was hit twice. First time split the top and we had it craned off (proper Boy's Toy ...), second time did for the rest of it.

The house was struck too. It had lightening conductor and metal strip down the side of the building. BT had routed all the phones in the house with external cable, tucked neatly behind the conductor strap as it went around the exterior. All of them blew up. There were also some wall lights, internally, near the conductor strap. Some sort of induction wrecked all that wiring.

On a separate occasions we had a BT isolator blow up with incoming spike, during a thunderstorm nearby.

You got your house built on a vein of copper? At least here the stats would suggest it hits the trees on the ridges first although i did take down a huge ash tree a few years ago that was partially hollow down one side of the trunk and the tallest tree in a valley hedge - it might have taken a small hit at some point that set the damage.

 

[WannabeOwner]

You got your house built on a vein of copper?

First 35 years there were none ... so its basically just luck. The house was struck at a time there were plenty of trees nearby. But I wouldn't now put a cable anywhere which might be at risk, the collateral damage in my case was a right royal PITA.