Stonedeaf's exceptional comments are absolutely correct. In our former home in another state, one of our neighbors was an electrical contractor who installed a whole house surge protection system for us at an extremely reasonable price. Among the things he told us: (a) surges on the line can occur from many sources, including neighbors using high voltage equipment such as arc welders, etc.; (b) it is the turn-on cycle when the most dangerous and damaging surges occur which is why I always turn off all heating and cooling systems when there is an outage, and then do not turn them on until after power has been restored; (c) the expensive compressor in your refrigerator/freezer can also be highly vulnerable to surges. We installed our whole house system when we lost a compressor on a Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezer even though there was no outage, but it turned out a neighbor was into car repairing and rebuilding and used an arc welder, among other equipment, for that purpose.
whole house protection
Recently our furnace was the victim of a power surge during a wind storm. Glad it was not the computer or audio components. Repair man said the furnace was probably running when it happened. If the furnace was not running it possibly may not have happened. We have protection for the computer and audio/video stuff but now I am thinking of installing a whole house surge protection or conditioner. Anyone out there with experience in this. Any comments. Recommend a product line?