The Villages Lightning Study Group which Len Hathaway leads gives presentations all through the year at club meetings, special meetings organized by local residents interested in lightning and at the POA meetings. Here is the link to the POA meeting since it was recorded. It will explain all the information about lightning and surge protection and the problem with the flexible gas lines used many years ago and what to do about it.

https://youtu.be/IJMLyywdB0A?t=1831

Ohiobuckeye
 

The only thing we saw that we didn’t like about lighting storms was it would kick a lot of circuit breakers out & some wouldn’t reset like refrigerator. Didn’t like that because sometimes we would be gone for 2 weeks!

This is why I ...
- installed lightning rods,
- wholehouse circuit breaker,
- individual circuit breakers for each piece of electronic equipment.
... and after 8 years - no problems.

Remember - since records have been kept, of all the Villages homes that caught fire from lightning - none had lightning rods.

I've never done any of that, and after 12 years...no problems!

Ohiobuckeye
 

But wouldn’t you think with all the lighting strikes the builders would put lighting rods in to prevent house fires, basically all lighting rods are, are rerod. It’s not all of the breakers it’s just the default breakers. Default breakers won’t reset & we all know GFCI breakers are only used where there’s water & never understood why they would put GFCI breakers on a refrigerator. Not saying you’re wrong about your assessment, but I know you might not of had an issue in 8 yrs. But really a refrigerator!