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My worst case scenario

Last night our house got hit by lightning, it started a fire in my studio and burned up all my basses with the exception of the new short scale and my A/E electric four. Even those two are heavily smoke damaged, I doubt the A/E can be saved as the inside of it was not sealed. It's hard to describe how emotional it was seeing all my basses laying on the floor burned to a crisp. All are completely lost, I doubt I can save a single pot out of the basses. I have some pics, I'll post them up later, I can't even look at them right now. All of my wood for future builds is covered in soot, not sure what can be saved.

My entire studio is melted into oblivion, amps, mixers, drums (not mine) and guitar amp (not mine). I feel terrible for my bandmates too.

I can't even get my head around it right now.

At least no one was hurt, and I know things can be replaced, but man those things are a piece of me, moreso than I even knew until now.

Insightful words fail me...

The most important thing is that everyone is okay. Stuff can be replaced, rebuilt or reacquired. Even beautiful instruments that we love.

Glad you are well insured, but if the Insurance company tries to screw you play hardball.

If the insurance doesn't work out and you need to to, don't hesitate to try the "gofundme" route.

Good luck!
 
With any luck, your insurance company won't dick you low. I had a case and found they only paid for replacement value of the materials used in the construction of instruments and artwork, not the real value. If you can salvage a body, with some judicious sanding and prep, it would make a nice survivor piece. Kind of like a rat bike build.
 
It does remind me that I need to re-inventory all my gear and record serial #'s etc for insurance purposes...

Yes...all TBers...please do this !! My brother was an insurance adjuster in the States for years, and left the field because of the tricks that insurers use to avoid their obligations. He thought it just wasn't right....I gave him a big 'good on ya' when he quit.
 
Oh yes, and keep all serial numbers in the cloud, i e information stored elsewhere where you can access it from anywhere. Serial numbers in the "cloud" is not revealing anything personal, and keeps intergrity. As long as you don't store passwords in real text, or bank account numbers. Serials means absoultely nothing to hackers and intruders.
 
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If the insurance company are one of the good ones, they feel lightning strikes at houses a very rare circumstance. It's even rarer that it catch a full fire afterwards. Mind you, since we talked about geologically "sound" ground, water and so on in earlier post regarding "traveling currents", it can also be noted that one can't protect against a so called "positive lightning jolt". Where the ions are the other way around, so to speak. No lightning rod picks up this, and no aircraft can be protected against it. Luckily these are very rare, one in a million lightning strikes, but can put out regional power grids, and are much more powerful. No matter how they are protected. Now, of course, there's absolutely no evidence left for you to show that the lightning bolt was of such a kind to start your fire. It's gone. Even if sitting i a car those lightning bolts just passes the way through and the faraday cage principle wont hold up that good. Those are the most evil ones, and are the cause for the old saying/adage "Lightning from a clear blue sky" or "bolts from the blue" where they are mostly created (in anvil clouds far away).

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OK, time for some slight eerie infotainment:

"Unlike the far more common "negative" lightning, positive lightning originates from the positively charged top of the clouds (generally anvil clouds) rather than the lower portion of the storm. Leaders form in the anvil of the cumulonimbus and may travel horizontally for several miles before veering towards the ground. A positive lightning bolt can strike anywhere within several miles of the anvil of the thunderstorm, often in areas experiencing clear or only slightly cloudy skies; they are also known as "bolts from the blue" for this reason. Positive lightning typically makes up less than 5% of all lightning strikes"


"Positive lightning bolts are considerably hotter and longer than negative lightning. They can develop six to ten times the amount of charge and voltage of a negative bolt and the discharge current may last ten times longer. A bolt of positive lightning may carry an electric current of 300 kA and the potential at the top of the cloud may exceed a billion volts — about 10 times that of negative lightning. As a result of their greater power, as well as lack of warning, positive lightning strikes are considerably more dangerous."

Lightning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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TIP: Do not relocate to the small village in Central African Congo called Kifuka, or (more likely for you) to central Florida, the lightning alley. West coast has the fewest lightning strikes in all of USA. Floridas east cost and central the most. Kifuka has the most cloud to ground hits on earth. Bad conduct opening a studio there, with precious gear.
 
A terrible loss- so sorry it took so much of your hard-earned basses. The electronics can be replaced w/ money, but art- not really.
At least you did not lose the whole house, and no injuries or pets lost.
I have been on a boat that was hit- fried most of the electronics, and came home after a nearby strike at the house I was renting to find the components in a tv melted. In both cases all the damage was caused by the grounds the electronics were connected by. The strike on the boat hit and exploded the 21' VHF that was 3 ft from me.
Since then I have a large throw switch on the ground side to keep the grounded antennas from being the most attractive thing around, and it isolates the electronics from ground when heavy weather is near.
At home, everything goes thru at least one surge protector and is unplugged when 'weather is near, and when I' m not home. Nothing is connected to ground except lighting, the fridge. a/c.
I get weather updates on the cell phone.
When you get over the shock and get things cleaned up, you'll get back to building with some fresh ideas- you have great enthusiasm for your builds and threads which we follow (even if we don't post much).
Good luck to you as you get things back in gear.
 
That's a lot to go through. I know 2 people personally around here whose houses got burned down by lightning. Both cases they were able to build better than what they had. But the instruments... I always said if my house was on fire and I could save 1 thing it would be my 6 string. Would be very tough to lose that. Best wishes with everything, it will take some time but it will all work out. You have the skill to build some great things and hopefully you will be able to do that again soon.
 
Well, Scandinavia ain't tropic by any means, so house fires started by lightning is rare. However, if and when they do it's on farms, barns of wood, that catch fire, not really any cabin or house were inhabitants are human. Barns are made of wood entirely and often contains hay. Go figure. Real houses have concrete (mostly) reinforcing iron bars, lightning rods on the roof, and that faraday cage built in, like car, anyway. If a house is struck, the fire that may evolve limits itself to small spaces and very rarely catches on. There a a few old houses with "hay roof" on them, that are more vulnerable, but as it mostly rains a lot at the same time the lightning strikes it is put out anyway, on the outside. I've yet to hear of or read of any instruments or other valuables lost in lightning house fires in Sweden. Maybe on the 60's or 50's where it wasn't really up to snuff yet. However, OTHER fires occurs, at christmas times, candles left on and yada yada...too hot heaters and whatnot. I would even go out and tell that when it's really cold they heat up the heaters too much, and THAT in turn makes fires that can be more devastating.

The most thing to make sure of is the power grid, and power lines in the house, moreso than the actual construction of the house. You can build them to just fry the electrical equipment, but the heat generated from around it should not catch on, and stay and start other things to flame up. It's the remaining heat from the wires after the shock that catches on, and that is the worst culprit. It's the plastic that's melting that's the evil thing, I wish the old and heavy bakelite came back...;)

Still, I am feeling sympathies, and grief with you. It's not encouraging to watch those pics, at all. While me myself have a few "desert island" items I will grab before the fire things strikes, it's mostly photos, negatives, and so on. Wouldn't be interested in collecting art, just for that sake. If it goes up in flames, very few insurance companies will pay for it. If any at all. I tried looking for a special insurance of my Klein electric, but no one wanted it. If something happnes to it (stolen, lost, fire, whatever) they just pay the nominal price, after they do a reduction of the value of what it cost when bought new.
 
Condolences from Central Florida. Good luck with your insurance company. A friend of mine had a lightning strike last year and fought tooth and nail for seven months to get fair compensation. And that was just for obvious damage to his house.

My shop is a 20 x 20 metal building. What, me worry?
 
I poked around in the studio a bit this morning. One bass (my one commercial bass a Carvin LB75) was missing, I thought maybe it had completely burned up. It was hanging by the headstock. I found it under a pile of rubble, the headstock is burned off it.

I'm coming to terms with things psychologically, today we found a long term rental, which is great, it will get us out of this crappy hotel, forward progress feels good.

I'll post up more pictures once the insurance finishes their inventory, probably in a couple months.

And thanks for all the supportive messages and posts, I've never really been on the receiving end of something like this, it really does help!