I have a whole house sacrificial surge protector in my main box. $400 to install, but it promises to cut off any big surge like these before it hits your house’s electrical system.
James, hello and welcome. However before you feel too confident we are talking about thunder storms and lightning strikes/ related events not power surges in the usual sense ( a transient current surge in the electrical system) .A lightning strike can involve 300 million volts and 30,000 amps.! I hope you read and took note of Phil’s posting:
" Hi Guys,
Having seen the results of a couple of nearby lightning strikes I can 100% assure you that surge protectors and mains conditioners will make absolutely 0% of difference to the absolute carnage that an unfortunately located lightning strike can cause.
Having stuff turned off at the wall outlet will also make no practical difference either.
Ultimately though what happens really depends on how big a hit and exactly where but to be 90+% safe you need to be unplugged from the wall (and has also been mentioned - it’s well worth pulling the Ethernet feed too).
I’ve seen systems come in for insurance evaluation / repair where I was previously the state of which you just wouldn’t believe … PCBs just split apart from the inside, PCB tracks simply missing having been fried etc.
OK so they’re more the exception than the rule and in those cases the owners had lots of damage to other things to deal with too."
Thanks, Pete. I may have misunderstood the information that came with my surge protector, if that’s what it’s called. I’ll have to recheck it. Jim
We have had the same kind of surge protector installed here, but knowing a small amount about the power of a lightning bolt, I wouldn’t risk it unless I’m not at home to be able do anything about it - or I was caught by surprise.
If lightning hits a pylon a few miles away, you might just see the lights flicker as the grid rebalances the load (presumably as an HV cable gets temporarily disconnected). If it hits closer to home, I suspect our surge protectors could be blown off the wall.
I’ve seen a direct strike on a building to cause the roof to become ablaze (and, as mentioned previously, a colleague of mine had his radiators blown off the walls). Unfortunately, that kind of power is sufficient to vaporise the circuits inside anything electronic.
Quite scary thinking about it!
The power of a badly placed lightning strike is just scary … I was once shown photos of rooms in a house (this was back in my days at Schneider Electric where we did power management and protection at commercial and even national scale) where lightning had hit and the plaster had blown off the walls along the paths taken by the properties internal mains wiring.
It’s one of those “you can take precautions but if it really wants to get you then it will” scenarios … ![]()
Phil
There are lightening protectors for that as well, which once upon a time used to be on tall buildings only. If we are discussing about lightening strikes we are talking about something that isn’t in human controls, even after doing everything we can.
Grows trees (taller than home) that should prevent home and the equipment from strikes.
If it’s our home that is affected I think there are lot more things to be taken care besides the audio gear alone
If lightening hits a neighbor possibly how to protect our gear is what should be thought about and in this case surge protection and network isolation should prevent from any catastrophic events on the gear.
I’ve found insurers get concerned when the height of a tree means it could fall on the house, so if you have tall trees, they’d don’t like them near the house!