whole house protection

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.

Just remember that a surge protector does not protect you from brown outs. They are two differant things and require differant devices for protection. The later is less costly to protect you from.

can anyone name some of the proven commercailly -availalbe products out there , that actually work?

Environmental Potentials products are designed to protect/filter at the service panel and at the outlets as required.

Just get a good Cost replacement "Rider" with your Home Insurance ...Thats the best protection one can have..I know .I lost some Audio Research pieces many years ago ( on xmas morning ) when I telephone pole transformer blew up in front of my house and destroyed my pride and joy tube preamp and amp ......I ended up with more money than they were worth and ended up buying newer pieces to replace them..The cost is minimal and the piece of mind is "Priceless"