Hi,

I've been looking at whole-house surge supressors and in my travels I found
something interesting at the Intermatic web site. I noticed this device:
http://www.intermatic.com/?action=prod&pid=8916, which looks very similar to
something we already have attached to our outdoor electric meter box.
Unfortunately ours has been painted over so I can't read the writing on it
to see if it is indeed a "secondary surge arrestor", but it's shape looks
exactly like this Intermatic unit so I'm guessing it is.

My question is, what does this device do as compared to the whole-house
surge supressor like the IG1240R (also sold by Intermatic)?

One reason I ask is that we had a damaging surge during a close lightning
strike when we first moved in (2001). The house was new in 2001 and the
device above was always attached at the meter box, so I'm assuming it's not
meant to stop lightning surges (either that or it's just not working g).
We lost our electronic sprinkler controller, a VCR, and an electronic phone.
The VCR actually smelled like it was burning after the lightning hit! (BTW,
the lightning was close, but did not hit our house directly. We never did
find any evidence of exactly where it actually did strike.)

Thanks,
-- Vinnie