But as you are probably aware if lightning does hit your house, even the houses grounding system is not going to handle the entire strike. Just as Power Surge suppressors are going to have a fail rate. Take a surge of say 150-300v can still take out a tv or other electronics vs a strike of 1mil + which will do damage.
I own a computer business servicing business and residential customers. Some of you guys would be surprised at the ignorance out there in the residential community regarding lightning and taking a lightning hit. You are absolutely right, if you take a direct hit, your TV is the least of your worries. I have seen lightning take out a tree (not the one in my yard, but one in Grand Haven Michigan on US31 near a Blockbuster video during a major rainstorm). The tree was zapped right out of the ground! It was an amazing sight.
A few things to remember....
1- UPS and surge protectors are great to have. A UPS will keep your computer up during a blackout for a few minutes or keep it from being damaged during brownouts. I use the $60 APC brand UPS' on all my computers AND my cable and DirecTV DVRs. There is nothing worse than a 5-8 minute DVR reboot because of a 1/2 second blackout or a brownout. Talk about spoiling your TV time while you wait for that Sat box to come back up. Put it on a UPS. It is worth the investment vs. frustration.
2- Many power companies offer a whole house surge supressor that gets installed at the meter. You pay a monthly rental for these. OR, you can have one installed for a one time fee when you have your house built or wiring redone. The power company won't just sell you this $75 part, they want to rent it. An electrician will sell you one but I believe it has to be installed when the power is turned off feeding your house from the utility. So the electrician would have to jump through hoops to put this into an existing power install. Of course the power company has no problem getting this done. They just turn it off and rent it to you after install.
3- Surge protectors/supressors are great, IF, and I say IF, you do not take a direct hit. If the strike hits down the street, everybody is fair game in getting a surge in the immediate area. If you have the whole house protection at the meter, great, it will stop the surge before it comes into your house. If you have a surge protector on your electronics such as the TVs and computers, etc, it willl stop the surge from hitting them. But remember, these devices are only effective if you do not take a direct hit. If your house is hit directly, you are lucky if you do not lose your house. Even with a surge supressor, proper grounding, etc, you are going to lose your connected electronics. That means the appliances, computers, TVs, video games, etc. Surge protection will not survive a direct hit. Having that said, it is a very good idea to have surge protectors and UPSs on all your stuff. The whole house surge protection is a good idea too. Because the odds of a direct hit are very unlikely. If I hadn't had security cameras, I'd proably not have lost anything inside when my tree was hit. But it came in through the line. All my stuff inside is connected to proper surge protectors and grounding, but that doesn't matter when it came in through the cable that carries the security camera signal. It even went through my Slingbox and took out Ethernet ports here and there throughout the house. Crazy stuff.
4-Just remember- If a direct hit strikes your house, you are f*ck*d!
One more thing. When I made my insurance claim, it was of course legit, but I was very surprised to learn that the weather center keeps a log of all strikes in the US. The insurance company actually verified the strike to near perfect accuracy. She looked it up and saw for a fact that my tree, indeed was hit by lightning. I was amazed. So anybody that loses a $3000 TV out of warranty who is trying to scam insurance, think twice. Lightning insurance fraud would not work this day in age. They know whether or not lightning hit right down to the fraction of a second and within feet of perfect accuracy.
