Start-Up Surge

As a homeowner with an electrically controlled heating system, we were, of course, without heating during the recent power outage. Being in the same home for many years (57), we were prepared for such an event and simply brought out the camping lantern for emergency lighting and passed the time reading. It was when the power came back on that our problems started. The initial surge blew out the control circuitry for our home heating boiler. The control board needed to be special ordered and the timing couldn't have been worse. Because of delay resulting from the Christmas holiday, we were without heat for over a week while the requisite $1,000 control board was delivered. Surely, some sort of soft start or alert to disconnect sensitive electronics would have avoided this costly repair.