As you may already know, there are about a thousand lighting strikes in the Earth's atmosphere every second. They are a natural phenomenon, a necessary thing in order to protect the planet from outside radiations. But it's not all so good: there are hundred of dead by ligt hning every year all over the Earth every years, and the thunder storms ofter destroy electrical devices of all types.
The electronics and electrical appliances inside the houses are not 100% safe from lightings, they have been often damaged or destroyed by lighting strikes even if they don't hit the building (your home or office). Very often they strike power lines and they send a surge of electricity down the wires into the devices inside. Usually the household appliances running on alternating current can handle momentary voltage surges up to 169 volts (the 120-volt version), or even more when they are running on 230 alternating current. The problems (the damages) appear when the surges appear beyond that maximum point set on the wires or devices. And the thunder storm lighting-surges can spike to several hundred volts.
There are few steps you can protect your devices using surge protectors, but in severe storms the best protections is to unplug all your home electrical appliances and disconnect the cable and phone lines.
- Install a surge protector to protect your entire house from voltage surges. Its only purpose is to divert excess voltage to the ground, to protect the entire home electrical system, including appliances and devices that are hard-wired to the power source. The Earth is the biggest mass we have access to, it can take a lot of surges without overloading. The most important thing you have to take care is that the service entrance protectors must be installed by a licensed electrician.
- Use plug-in surge protectors for telephone and cable TV lines. Most of you use cell phones (mobile phones), but the fixes lines (if you have) for phones and the lines for cable TV are not always protected against the surges from lightings.
- Install a plug-in point-of-use electrical surge protector. You plug this device into a grounded electrical outlet and plug your appliance into the surge protector.
These last 2 surge protectors send the surges to an electrical ground others than the Earth: the building itself, other devices. Most electrical surge protectors have a light that indicates they are working and when/if the light goes out then replace the protector.
On the market there are a lot of option that can help you in your effort to keep safe your devices and home appliances: ppower bars with built in surge protector and multiple outlets, surge protection devices that can be mounted on a residential circuit breaker panel, UK type G socket adaptor with surge protector, 2-pole surge protector for installation indistribution boards and so on.
