Surge Protection for the House

If you don't do it, then you have waived SMUD from any potential liability for appliance damage due to surges in the future (by my reading of their Site.) It's an insurance policy in the form of a whole-house TVSS installed at the meter. This is step 1, and only covers motor driven appliances. Step 2 is the outlet strips, and those are required to cover "electronics."

If I was in Sac, I'd do Step 1 in a heartbeat. I'd do Step 2 certainly on the computer and peripherals. On the stereo equipment is a tough call since the supplied outlet strip is, well,...you know. I think I'd look at a glorified outlet strip like the baby Hydras that have some decent surge suppression.

Fortunatly, lighting strikes in No. CA are scarce. I have PG&E and I'm going to look into what they may offer.

Thank you for the suggestion, Shasta.

Howard

Make sure that your phone lines are protected too. Our neighborhood lines were hit by lightning and we lost all phones, the modems in our computers, etc. as did others on our block.

When we asked the phone company about surge protection for the house, they insisted that lightning never comes in via the phone line. Fortunately the insurance company covered the loss.

Good advice, and going from memory, the SMUD supplied strips come in 2 flavors; w/ phone jacks (RJ-something) and the other with F-connectors for coax cable.

My local electrical utility offered a similar service feature, and I recently took advantage of the Stage I meter-based whole house surge protector.

I did not notice any significant reduction in audio quality. If there was any, my big 2ch system would highlight it. No appreciable sonic change.

So, just for the piece of mind since I live in a heavy lightning-strike area, I thought it was worth it.