Posted by bob on 30, 2001 at 1:33 PM:
on lightning threat to phone lines:
in our office there were at least several occasions where the main board on our phone system stopped working after a lightning storm. we installed a surge supressor manufactured by "porta systems" and haven't had any problems. this supressor cost about $100 and has replaceable fuses for 6 phone lines.
on the suitability of the earth ground:
what i have read is if you don't have a ground, then you will mess up all your grounded electronics sooner or later even if there's never a surge.
if you read the home wiring faq, you will see that just looking at the ground wire isn't enough. you actually need to have the grounding rod tested for it's ability to conduct electricity to earth. the test described in the faq sounds scarry. also, the wiring method described in the thread (ground wire straight back to circuit box) is known as "isolated ground". (refridgerators, dishwashers, garbage disposals, and washing machines are usually wired like this, except sometimes not when the wire runs through conduit). if you have an isolated ground outlet type of outlet in a place other than mentioned above, it should have a green triangle on it, and there will only be that one outlet on the circuit breaker.
anecdotal evidence:
we experience a lot of hard drive failure here, but never on drives behind UPS. ymmv