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According to American Power Conversions - leaders in the surge protector and power backup industry - even the second highest cause of computer data loss is a massive 35.9% behind surge and lightning damage. Lightning causes almost twice as much computer damage as fires, explosions, hardware faults, software bugs, floods, human errors, and sabotage combined!
During most summer months, approximately half of the repair work I perform on audio/video products is to repair lightning and surge damage!
I decided to write this page after hearing indirectly from an insurance adjuster that we are all going to see a rise in insurance premiums because people don't bother to try to protect their own electronics from lightning and surge damage! Deductibles will probably also rise. I don't want to see my insurance go up, and I'm sure you don't either, so please make use of the information provided here!
There are many effective ways to greatly reduce the risk of lightning damage to your electronics equipment, but first, some explanations:
How Does Lightning Strike Something Inside The Home?
Lightning generally seems to strike a conductor outside the home, and
it frequently "splashes" to other objects in the area as it tries to
find one or many paths to ground. Several potential paths could very
well be through your home!
So what conductors lead into your home?
Electrical, Telephone, TV antenna, cable TV service, or dish lead-in, any
direct-wired alarm services, water pipes, gas lines, etc. Anything that
connects to any one of these is threatened, but what is really at risk are
the devices that connect to two or more outside services. A TV connects to
electrical and antenna/cable/dish. An computer uses phone wires and electrical
wires. This is the stuff that's really at risk! (It's kind of like
reaching for the light switch while you've got your hand in the sink!)
Lightning could hit the TV tower, go through the TV and ground
through the electrical system. (Bye-bye television!) It could hit a
utility pole, travel through your computer and ground through the
telephone service. (Bye-bye computer, and any other electronics you left
plugged in!)
Protection can be divided into 3 groups:
Manual Protection:
Probably the cheapest (but most tedious) method. You could protect your
equipment by watching "The Weather Channel" and running around your
house disconnecting all antenna connections, and pulling the phone
wires and power cords on everything for each and every storm
warning. But what happens when you forget, or when you're not there, or
the weather forecast is wrong, or a surge occurs that's not storm
related?
Surge Supressors:
A more expensive but much more effective method. Surge supressors come in
many different types and styles to protect all the vulnerable points
such as power plugs, antenna connections, phone jacks, etc. They can
come in the form of a power bar (which may have a pair of telephone jacks
or TV coax connectors), a power block that fits over an electrical outlet,
or a stand alone supressor that fits in a wall outlet or a breaker panel.
These things can react quickly by absorbing large surges of current
before it gets to your sensitive equipment. In theory, your expensive
electronics survive unscathed, even though the surge supressor may have been
completely destroyed......that's the theory.....reality never works
perfectly, but good quality surge supressors do have a surprising success
rate.
Don't waste your money on a cheap $5 Wall-Mart supressor which offers no guarantees. The protection they offer is negligible. Look for a supressor that has a Lifetime Warranty, that will cover it if it is ever damaged by a lightning strike, and look for one with a Connected Equipment Warranty that will pay for repairs to anything damaged by power surges while it was connected to the surge supressor. After all, it's the thing's job to absorb surges, right? Shouldn't it be guaranteed to do what it's designed for?
Such supressors will cost between $35 and $90 Canadian, but you'll never have to pay that again if it's got a lifetime guarantee. Think of it as an insurance policy with one premium payment, lifetime coverage, and no deductible! Nice, huh?
Also, make sure you get a supressor that's suited to the job. For example, if you want to protect your computer - which connects to the wall outlet and your house phone line, get a supressor that has the telephone jacks on it. That way it can stop a surge from whichever wire it comes in on. This is just as important if you have a DSL modem. Don't think you can get away without protecting that DSL modem. It's connected directly to your computer. If it gets a surge blasted through it, the surge will nail your computer through that network cable that connects the computer to the DSL modem. There's no point in doing half the job. A surge supressor that only connects to the power cords can't stop a surge that comes in through the phone line until it's run through the computer and out the power cord. (destroying the computer in the process) If you have cable internet, you'll have to connect the cable modem's coax wire and power cord though the surge supressor as well, just to get decent computer protection.
For your entertainment system, get a supressor with the coax fittings, and run the signal cable through the supressor, as well as plugging all the components into the supressor. Going without the supressor connection on the coax line is like making sure your front door is securely locked before you go away for the weekend, but leaving the back door wide open.
Grounding Techniques:
Another effective but time consuming method. Basically this can only be done
with antenna, cable, or satellite dish lead-in cables, but it can help
a lot for any devices that connect to those services.
Since an antenna tower can act just like a big lightning rod, the
best thing to do is to make sure the tower is well grounded. Just
sitting on the ground is not good enough. If there isn't a nearby
water line to use as a ground, pound a long steel rod into the ground
near the tower. Connect a thick cable between the tower and the rod, and
make sure the connections are secure and tight. You can do the same with one of those
big C-band satellite dishes.
Next, install a "grounding block" on the coax wire inside the
house. Preferably, ground it to a copper or steel water line with a
short, thick wire. If a water line is not available, you may be able
to connect the block to the ground wire in your house electrical
system, but be sure to check your local electrical code to see if this
is permitted first! A grounding block can be used on the small satellite
dishes from Bell Expressvu, Starchoice, DirectTV, etc, as well as towers
and C-band dishes. Be sure to unplug the satellite receiver before
installing the grounding block. You can even install one on the incoming
cable TV service if you have one.
Using all of these methods should provide very effective protection
for your equipment, hopefully keep our insurance rates down, and help
reduce the amount of dangerous e-waste we produce.