[Don Plumley]

Earlier in the morning there were two short brownouts. Came home later from errands with igniters on our gas range firing continuously and smell of arc welding/carbon. No Breakers tripped.

Turned off breakers, found a bunch of cooked surge strips - evidence of carbon deposits under. This is on various circuits in house / different rooms.

Turned breakers on, stove igniters working fine. Surge strips still deliver power, but smell bad.

Discovered a fried printer, pc, and amplifier - was on surge strips, now cooked - won't power on when plugged into a good outlet.

Happened again in the late afternoon, fried the surge strip that used to replace the (now) dead UPS I use for the cable modem/router.

PG&E (power company) came out, said I was describing a "high-low". Attached a huge thing call "The Beast" to the main panel and said that the power being delivered to the house is fine. They will order a recorder next week, but said it will take me at least two weeks to get an answer.

I've lost $1K of devices and need to be back in business on Tuesday - but I'm gun shy to plug anything in.

Looking back, we lost a surge strip weeks ago that was not charging my wife's laptop. This was before I replaced all the outlets in the master bedroom, so I don't think anything I did to replace the outlets was a cause, but want to provide full information.

Electrical system should be relatively new (~2000); we don't have lightning (NorCal).

Ideas? Kinda nervous about all these surge strips going south...