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On 05/01/14 13:28, Henry Bremridge wrote: > > This time it appeared to have worked: the centralised surge protectors blew > but all the electrical connections were safe. The thing I'm completely failing to find anywhere is any sort of cost/benefit analysis for additional surge protection beyond what the energy and telecoms companies have to do to keep their networks safe. The cynical view of the cheap power strip surge protectors is they have to fail before your devices to be any good, so they fail easily, and they won't stop a really close hit, so you'll replace them several times before any device gets saved. Obviously the benefits depend on a lot of variables. How much electronics you have and what it cost, how many power lines run along side yours (as that will reduce the surge), how the cables are laid, even soil impedance if they are buried. What the devices you own have as power supplies since a lot will contain varying degrees of protection. But having lasted 44 years without using additional surge protection, and having paid out for one router (for which I discovered afterwards it just needed a factory reset to recover from the nearby lightening strike and never used the replacement). My parents also lost a TV set to a strike via the antenna when I was a baby. It exploded into small pieces, I slept through it apparently. So household protection would have been Â200 x number of houses, and it probably wouldn't have saved the router or the TV since neither were power cable strikes, so substantial outlay for no discernible benefit. Obviously I've not been living out in the wilds, with one cable strung over land for miles from the nearest substation (I'm guessing Henry's is more like that), but none of the reviews I've seen have made any substantive effort to discuss risk v benefit. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq