Patch wrote:
Is there some way to protect a house from lightning strikes? We got
whacked last week & have a lot of damaged electronic goodies. I don't
want to go through this again! It struck my 10 ft satellite dish &
came into the house & got into the mains panel. From there it went to
every circuit in the house. I have 2 GFI circuits in the house and
they both tripped and nothing on those circuits was damaged. That's
why I asked about something that could cover the entire house.

Thanks

Protection from lightning comes in at least two flavors. One is the
physical damage including fire from a direct strike. For that see your
local lightning rod company. That is not a do it yourself job.

As for wiring, I suggest that you start by replacing the GFI, they may
have given their all in the effort. As Joe noted, make sure your home
grounds are are properly designed installed and have not been damaged.
Note: a lightning strike can damage wiring so that it could cause a fire or
other problems later. I would contact my insurance company and they may
suggest and supply or pay for a professional inspection and repair.

I would suggest adding whole house surge protection. I have it on my
home. If you feel comfortable with replacing or adding a circuit breaker,
you may be ready to DIY. However if opening up the circuit breaker box
makes you a little uneasy and you don't know what you are looking at in
there, I suggest having them installed professionally.

As for personal experience; I had a lightning strike about 18" away from
my A/C compressor unit. It blew out part of the controller circuit board,
but did no damage in the house. I was able to re-wire the board eliminating
the damaged section as that function was duplicated by my thermostat.

Good Luck

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit