In a new construction home with a basement, have gotten some conflicting help on my wiring. Had an electrician tell me it would be best to run our wiring in our floor joists as many wires per 3/4 inch hole as possible to avoid having to drill too many holes, which would understandably weaken the floor joists. Makes sense not to drill an individual hole for each and every wire, that would have the joists looking like swiss cheese in some places and also leave the wiring likely more messy/cluttered looking with having to space out all the holes that would be needed. Had an industrial electrician we know come by yesterday to kind of look things over and he pointed that out and said while it is not a code issue the woman inspector where he does most of his work would not let that go as it is. She is not the inspector we get here, but this kinda has me concerned and I really don't want to ask/raise questions on this with our inspector. He also pointed out my use of staples, having wires doubled up in some 3/4 inch staples and then using the large gray staples for multiple wires in places. The work is neat and for the most part clean looking, but kind of concerned about having to pull wire back out since I already stripped the wires down into my panel. If I have to pull them back out and drill more sets of holes then so be it, but really not seeing the point in it if it is not against code. Hoping to get past our rough in this coming Wednesday. If the use of staples and the multiple wiring in the holes are not against the 2008 nec, what are the chances our local inspector is going to have a problem with it and require that to have to be changed? Any insight would be appreciated.

I have an LCD TV that we got earlier this year. I have mounted it on the wall with the power just behind the TV so I am not able to use a good power strip with a surge protector for the power to the TV. My concern is the lightning we have in our area and I want to protect the TV. I'd really like to protect the whole house from surge but that may be down the road a bit. What can I do to protect my TV now? Will a GCFI receptacle act as a surge protector and protect my TV against a surge from a lightning strike? Also, if there are suggestions for protecting the whole house (like putting something in the main breaker panel) I would welcome that info as well. Thanks.