AC isn't my forte... I know a bit about DC, though!
Agree about having a Sparky check out your grounding to the house. Might cost a little up front, but you'll save money & hassle from smoked electronics.
Also agree about surge protectors, and I had the same thing happen to me with a laptop that was fed by a surge protector that didn't protect it when the power surged before & after the outage. Unfortunately, not all surge protectors are created equal. The spikes that happen as the grid goes down can be powerful, especially if it's a tree knocking the power lines during a storm and the grid surges to clear the problem.
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In addition to your AC grounding that Gunny is talking about, there's also one for your telephone cabling that grounds from the NID (gray plastic telephone box on the side of your house). If that isn't properly grounded, any spike can travel into your house via the phone lines and blow up your Comm equipment... I installed a bunch of those working line crew years ago.
The best one I've had is this UPS... I've had it for about 8 years now :
Not one piece of electronics has smoked since I started using it. Plus, if you have your modem & router fed through it on the battery side, you'll still have internet during a power outage because your ISP also has battery backup. Having your LEDs operational during a power outage would be nice, too.