Hawkins Electric Services, LLC

Lightning can be as unpredictable as it is destructive. However there are proper procedures that must be followed in order to give you and your electronics a fair chance against a strike. Possibly even prevent you from ever having lightning related damage again. Forget about surge protectors and such items that claim to protect your equipment. If your home isn’t properly grounded and bonded, they’re not serving much more of a purpose than a typical multi point cord junction. In fact, if the outlet serving any such “protector” happens to be the shortest path to ground in an unbalanced field of potential, there’s a great chance of losing everything that’s plugged into that device. Their ability to actually absorb a lightning strike is zero. They’re designed to work in a system that has a balanced ground potential where the vast majority of the surge will be taken straight to the earth ground and dispersed across the utility neutral as designed. In this scenario some of them CAN work. Even then, I recommend having the right “whole house” arrestor installed by a certified and licensed electrician, OR speak to your utility provider about their selection of protection devices available for a monthly fee. Just remember what I said a few lines up about a balanced ground potential… This is the proper procedure I was referring to in the second sentence of this post. If you are experiencing lightning damage, there is a better than average possibility that your entire electrical infrastructure is not all utilizing the same grounding means. Thus, leaving you with an unbalanced ground potential that will absolutely invite destruction into your electronic world. Not only should your home’s Main Power Panel contents be using the same “Power Ground” (this is the grounding grid established & provided by the Power utility), but anything and everything else dependant upon your homes’ power service such as Satellite systems, Telephone / Digital Subscriber lines, and Cable TV / Internet providers. Everything is ultimately part of the same infrastructure at some point… Therefore everything must be on the SAME ground potential, that of the Power Utility provider. No exceptions whatsoever… I have to be redundantly clear about this if I am to back it up… So for example, If you have an out bldg that maybe has a phone, or TV, or computer using Internet, and that bldg operates all by itself 300 yards from your home, on a sub fed panel service from your Main Power Panel, You will have to provide the grounding means back to the originating grounding probe that your Power Utility is bonded to… 300 yards away, at your home. Try it differently if you wish. This is tried and true grounding methodology and it works. Sorry for the lengthy post, if you made it this far… but the detail is necessary
when the subject matter is electricity, especially grounding.