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Originally Posted by huge-pigeons
There are many ways that lightning can damage your home and it doesn’t have to be a direct strike, and most aren’t direct hits. Right now, my friend that lives 1/2 mile away from the home that got hit with lightning, his internet service has been out since then and his neighbors had their TVs destroyed. Again all explainable.
Let’s ignore the direct hit, this is self explanatory, get lightning spikes installed on your house.
Power surges are very common and can damage equipment in your house so a whole house surge suppressor will help eliminate these surges.
The 3rd issue is something nobody addresses and that’s the copper cable coming into your home from a network or cable tv provider, which nobody suppresses. Every device that is connected to this copper cables is susceptible to a surge and will be damaged. Most of my surge suppressor indoor units have a rg6 connection to eliminate any surges.
There are many stories on lightning hitting a tree then having the voltage go down the tree trunk, hitting the power lines and then the neighbors experience a surge which damages their indoor appliances
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Thanks for this good points. What you are describing is an "Induced power surge" as a result of a lightning strike. As you correctly state, this happens way more frequently than damage from direct strikes to property. It's just not discussed and reported because it's not as sensational to the news outlets as someone having a huge hole punched in their roof or the whole house totally destroyed by fire as happened in Linden Village last year. You mainly hear about these events from your neighbors at local gatherings, etc.. You are also correct in that most induced power surges travel into your home through the cable and or telephone lines and or your irregation system. If you have cable, there are devices you can buy on Amazon that will protect your home from these surges. With Fiber internet service this isn't a concern becasue no copper wiring there. Unfortunately, I don't know of a device that will protect intrusions from the irregation system.
As one of the engineers in the Villages Lightning Study group I focus on Power Surge Protection. To add to your very accurate comments, here is what we say about induced power surges. I've posted this response several times when this topic comes up.
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When lightning strikes near your home you may get hit by an "induced“ surge which frequently trips circuit breakers, especially freezers and door openers in your garage but depending on the intensity can damage your HVAC system, inside and out, all your appliances, electronic equipment, pool and spa equipment, etc.. Surge protection is a layered system. There is a surge protector you can purchase or rent from your electric company mounted on the electrical meter as discussed here in this thread, which will protect you against surges coming in from the power lines. This happens statistically 20% of the time. The electric company has a sophisticated surge and grounding system to protect from this type of event and because most power surges don't come into your home from the utility, many who have this device still report surge damage in their home and the surge protector at the meter shows no sign of a surge. In addition to the surge protector at your electrical meter you can install what is called a "whole house surge protector". There are many but the Eaton Ultra is one of the more affordable and effective ones that's commonly installed by most electrical companies such as Pikes and Lenhart. This surge protector is mounted at your electrical circuit breaker box. Because it’s located at the breaker box the other 80% of the power surges you can get such as at the outside HVAC unit, pool, spa, outside lighting, etc., will be shunted by this device at the circuit breaker box and reduce and or eliminate the surge from spreading to the rest of the circuits in your home. Because surges are so fast, the surge protector has to be as close to the source as possible to be effective. The surge protector mounted on the electrical meter can help, but it's not designed to shunt these other types of induced surges. Its sole purpose is to reduce large surges coming from the power lines or surges induced into the power lines coming to your home so the rest of the surge protectors in your home can handle the level of the surge that remains. It can also shunt power surges origination from the rest of your electrical system but not to a low enough level for total protection. This is why their warranty doesn't cover any device with an electronic board. The "whole house" surge protector mounted in your circuit breaker box will protect your appliances, washer dryer and all other devices that are hard wired such as the HVAC air handler and your electric hot water heater because it's designed to shunt surges to either eliminate them or shunt them to a low enough level that your devices or other surge protection can handle the surge. The final protection are the surge protection power strips, plug-in or point of use surge protectors which you install at your TVs, computers and any other sensitive electrical equipment. These devices will shunt and protect your equipment form any remaining surges that get through your meter or whole house surge protector. If you want to go further you can install point of use surge protector outlets or plug-in protectors for your microwave, dishwasher, garage door openers, etc. and or hard-wired surge protectors at you outside HVAC unit, pool and spa equipment.
To summarize, Surge Protection is a layered system. You want to install surge protectors to reduce and or eliminate the power surge so by the time an initally large surge reaches your home devices it's small enough for the point of use surge protector to handle it. Damage from power surges is covered in your homeowner’s insurance but you still have to pay the deductible and deal with replacing all the damaged devices. We live in the lightning capital of the USA so investing in surge protection is probably a wise investment but like insurance, it depends on your tolerance to risk. Most of us have at least $1,000 deductible on our homeowner’s insurance which more than pays for the surge protection I discussed here. At the end of the day, you need to look at what it will cost to install a surge protection system, at a minimum installing something like the Eaton surge protector in your circuit breaker panel and point of use surge protectors at your TV, computer and other sensitive devices, vs your tolerance for risk. Eventhough your insurance will cover devices destroyed by power surges in your home, you will have the inconvenience of dealing with the insurance company, having to replace everything that was destroyed and probably get an increase in your insurance premium at your next renewal.
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