I live in mid-central Florida which is not as bad as the Tampa area for lightning damage. Our HT system is always plugged into a decent surge protector which I had plugged into a GFI outlet in our enclosed porch that is also shared with our living room. We’ve never been struck directly but I’ve occasionally found upon arriving home that the GFI had been tripped but not the surge protector that was plugged into it. I can only assume the GFI responded much faster than the surge protector and was doing all the protecting since the TV always powers up once I reset the GFI. I thought that GFI’s only detect ground faults. A TV repairman once commented that we must not use our TV much since it showed no telltale evidence of power surges damage. So based on my observations could GFI’s detect other electrical malfunctions as well? Our kitchen and bathroom GFI’s have never been tripped. What is going on here??? Did we get a GFI on steroids?
Unplug or ride out the storm?
In most years we have a couple of severe thunderstorms and to be safe I unplug everything. This summer is like twilight zone. Probably 15 or 20 significant electrical storms. I've been unplugging everything even though I have Furman surge protection and power conditioning. I'm confident it will work if called upon but don't want to put it to the test if I don't have to. Kind of like lifeboats on a ship. They probably work fine but you'd rather not have to test them out. The bad part (whether placebo or real) I'm convinced some of my components take anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days to really hit their stride when they've been unplugged and allowed to cool off. Just curious what everybody else does