Well once again it’s summer in the USA.. That means lots of thunder and lighting storms. I ended up just disconnecting everything since I don’t like turning it all on then having to just shut it off. I do have all underground wiring but that doesn’t protect from big On surges or Lightening strikes on the building.
What do others do?
Our house on in quite an exposed location, so we are somewhat prone to getting hit, although probably less here in the UK compared to the US climate. Unplugging power, copper network cables and aerials before it arrives is the only reliable solution. You are right that buried cables are not immune: strikes that hit the ground near your house can charge buried pipes and cables, and this is at least as likely to get you as a direct strike.
Disconnect every component connected with copper wires prior to thunderstorm. I had a PC and two routers destroyed three years ago.
Lightning struck a telephone line about half a mile from my house, a power surge did the damage. Fortunately my Naim stuff was unharmed but i take no chances now. Unplug whenever there’s an electrical storm forecast
The only way to protect yourself from lightning is to unplug everything from the wall outlet. Just turning gear off does nothing for you in that regard.
That also includes disconnecting ethernet cables from streamers/DACs. Those can also carry damaging electrical surges to gear in the event of lighting strikes.
Having enjoyed living in Michigan, the weather can be much much more dramatic than the U.K….a couple of mini tornado experiences in our 3 years. I now turn off for stirms or vacation.
Here in St. Louis area power outages have gotten bad enough from storms that we’re in the middle of an install for a 20kW backup generator.
We rolled up at our rented property on a nice lake 30 miles or so out of Detroit and the first week at work we had what the local authorities called a microburst. I remember stopping at the traffic lights at the end of the lake, and noticing the clouds looked odd in their movements and colours ( greenish dark blue). By the time i got home, trees were down, power lines……we had detroit edison truck making sure we stayed indoors. Being on well water we used lake water for flushing the loo…..soon became 3 rd world, and then jumped back.
We had a blast, memories.
I have all the valuable stuff plugged into a power distribution box so I just need to plug that one cable from the wall
Similar here. I have a AV Options Wiremold for the electronics and a couple 3-way hydra cables, for each channel of the REL six-pack. I just unplug those, but I also pull the ethernet cable out the back of my DAC.
we are lucky here in the uk - storms are much less common - but system was unplugged last week - just i cable to block - on wifi so thats it - phone is via internet these days so router left on