Ground block pulled off siding, fried a customer's TV in Maplewood

Last Friday I was running a new RG6 line to a second floor bedroom in an older split level over in Maplewood. The house had a messy ground block from a previous install, two wires sharing one lug and one of them barely screwed in. I got the drop terminated and hooked up my signal meter, everything read fine, so I started pulling the line through the wall cavity. About halfway through, the cable snagged on something and I gave it a good yank. That pulled the whole ground block right off the siding, and the bare copper wire swung down and touched a live outlet box on the exterior wall. There was a pop and a spark, and the homeowner's smart TV in the family room below blinked off and wouldn't come back on. Turns out the surge went straight through the shield to the ground path and fried the TV's power supply. I had to replace the block, re-ground everything properly with a new copper rod and clamp, and eat the cost of a service call for the TV repair guy. The homeowner was cool about it, but my boss wasn't thrilled when I had to explain the $180 in parts and labor. Has anyone else had a bad ground cause equipment damage on the customer side, or is it just me?

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miles_robinson202mo ago

Honestly that ground block probably saved the TV from something worse, and you're lucky the surge didn't hit the homeowner instead.

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