The outage itself rarely breaks anything. The damage happens when the power comes back — a surge as supply is restored, repeated hard shutdowns, and equipment that was never designed to be switched off this way several times a week.
What actually gets damaged
Anything with a compressor or a motor: fridges, freezers, air conditioners, pumps. Electronics with sensitive power supplies. Anything mid-cycle when the power goes — a machine part way through a process is more vulnerable than one sitting idle.
Computers rarely die outright from a single event. They lose data, corrupt files, and shorten their own lives through repeated unclean shutdowns.
Surge protection, in layers
A plug adaptor protects one appliance from a small surge and nothing else. Protection at the distribution board is what deals with a larger event arriving on the incoming supply, and it needs a qualified electrician.
The two together is the sensible arrangement: board-level for the premises, and individual protection on the things that matter most.
Surge protectors are consumable. They absorb energy and degrade, and one that has taken a big hit may no longer be protecting anything. If there has been a serious event, have them checked rather than assuming they still work.
Delay the restart
Bringing everything back at the same instant is itself a stress — on your equipment and on the supply. Where equipment supports it, set a start delay so items come back staggered rather than together.
For refrigeration specifically, a compressor restarted immediately against residual pressure is being damaged. Time-delay relays exist for exactly this and are inexpensive relative to a compressor.
Shut down properly when you can
Where the schedule is published, use it. Switching sensitive equipment off at the plug before an outage, and back on a few minutes after supply returns, removes most of the risk for no money at all.
A UPS does the same job for anything that cannot be attended to, by holding the load long enough for a clean shutdown.
Protect the data separately
Equipment is replaceable and insured. The records frequently are not.
Cloud accounting, cloud file storage, and an automatic backup mean an unclean shutdown costs you a machine rather than a business. This is also the cheapest item on the list.
Keep the paperwork
Where equipment is damaged by a supply event, an insurer will want evidence — what happened, when, and that reasonable protection was in place. Keep the certificate for any surge protection installed, and note the date and time of significant events.
Some policies treat power surge as a specific insured item with its own limit. Check whether yours does, and what it requires of you.
General guidance, not technical or insurance advice. Electrical work must be done by a qualified person; confirm your own policy conditions.