A tenant in an office building complained that a power spike in the building knocked out his computer and it took hours to get it going again. Previously, he lost a circuit board out of his copier and his water cooler died. He also said that another tenant had some phone equipment damaged.
It only took two weeks before I was sent to check. The tenant met me at the door and shut down his computer before I was invited to enter. He had two employees and he sent them home. It was 1:30 pm.
The computer was plugged into a new UPS with surge protection.
I recorded the voltage at the receptacle while I turned on various pieces of equipment in the office. Everything was good, but I noticed that he had a laptop plugged into another receptacle.
Since the problem seemed to be widespread, I checked the service and sub-panels. The workmanship was flawless and the panels were very lightly loaded.
I talked to the other tenant and learned that his phone equipment was damaged two years ago.
When I returned to the first tenant's office, he told me that he couldn't turn his computer on and had lost all his data. I asked how he could tell it was lost if he couldn't turn it on, and he told me that he checked from another computer in the office.
Now he says that he had a technician fix the computer and recover the data and the technician tells him that I damaged his computer when I checked the voltage. He denies that he was using a laptop, and demands that I pay for the technician.
Because I used a Fluke meter, shouldn't he take this up with them?
