I have some bad news and some glad news

First the bad news, on Dec. 8 boiler #1 was damaged because it failed to shut off when there was no water inside it. A similar situation occurred when I left an expensive kettle on the stove too long and ruined it. Unlike my kettle the boiler has numerous safety devices, but unfortunately they failed. New York Plumbing and Heating concluded a power surge caused the fuse for the water pump to blow and it stopped pumping water. In addition the two low water cutoff controls circuitry were damaged so they allowed boiler #1 to run even though it was empty. I was surprised that a power surge caused this problem, but my expertise is limited to making electricity from a potato in the school science fair. The glad news is that our insurance carrier may pay for part or all of the damage, and we did not have any disruption of services. Also the board is moving quickly to have additional smoke detectors, and alarms installed so that any future problem can be dealt with before catastrophic failure occurs. Our boiler system met all the safety regulations currently in effect at the time of it's installation in 2003, but I guess not even the professionals can foresee every possible problem. I still have that potato in case we have a blackout.