I believe you have completely missed the point made by
. Somehow you think a surge protector
is surge protection. During the surge, a wire or a surge
protector does the same thing. And both are only as effective
as the earth ground they connect to. Even the world's best
'whole house' protectors is no better than a plug-in
protectors without the most critical component in a surge
protection 'system'. Single point earth ground defines the
quality of that protection.

Why is a 'whole house' protector effective? If it makes a
short connection to earth, then the protector is doing as Ben
Franklin demonstrated in 1752. What do plug-in protectors
(especially APC) forget to mention to sell their grossly
overpriced and undersized protectors? Earth ground. What did
define when he was discussing effective
protection? Earth ground. What did the utility customer
service rep (who probably has no experience with what another
division of the utility deals with often) not mention?
Earthing.

Take the money mostly wasted on plug-in protectors to
address the one component required in every protection system
- earth ground. First and foremost, every incoming utility
must make a connection to the same earthing point when
entering a building. This connection is either using a direct
hardwired connection (ie CATV, satellite dish) or via a 'whole
house' protectors (AC electric and telephone). The telco
already installs a 'whole house' protector for free. How
effective is it? What kind of earth ground did you provide
for the telco to connect to?

Notice CATV has no protector nor is a protector needed. A
connection to earth ground is via a hard wire. No protector
required because that wire does the same function.

This figure from the NIST demonstrates why improperly
earthed incoming utilities result in fax machine damage. Even
the protectors are not effective. Why? Earthing defines
protection (or in this case, lack of protection):
http://www.epri-peac.com/tutorials/sol01tut.html

A surge protector is only as effective as its earth ground.
Earthing (not a protector) is the protection. Those who
promote the protector instead of earth ground clearly don't
know why or what makes protectors effective. Better spent
money is on the earthing system; not on undersized,
overpriced, and ineffective plug-in protectors.

finalquest wrote:
I'd like to thank everybody for the help..... I won't be moving to
the desert though. After speaking with the local electric utility
I'm going for the whole house surge protector with smaller plug in
units for all electronics. The APC units are under consideration.