This came up today at home - are whole-home surge protections worth it? There seems to be no good immediate information on the occurrences of surges or how often there is damage by outside (not internal) surges. Most of the information is published by insurance companies (All State, State-Farm). There are the claims of 20M!! ground-lightning strokes per year, with no context of how many cause devastating power surges. I even read some article that double lightning hits on the same pole can cause double surges that punish you after the first one broke the fuse on your first line of defense.
For our house, which is an old house, there is a mix of circuits with and without ground wires. I have heard surge protector strips plugged into circuits without ground wires are essentially useless since there is no where for the 'surge' to be dumped. So we do have a mix of electronics (monitors, laptops, etc. ) and appliances (tankless gas water heater, normal kitchen stuff, laundry). If the surge was completely devastating I would say it amounts $15k worth of damage tops. Maybe I am missing something here (damage to panel, etc.)?
The cost of protection? It turns out there are these whole home surge protectors that can be installed at the panel that can grab and dump a significant amount of the incoming surge. Those would cost $200, plus apparently a 2-3 hours of an electricians time since playing with an electrical panel is not my favorite DIY. I would say the cost would be $1k tops.
So, $1k as an insurance against $15k of damages in worst case. I typically agree with the MMM approach on insurance. I don't carry any comprehensive or collision on my car. Assume with healthy savings any disaster can be overcome with these 'being hit by lightning' events. What does collision and comprehensive cost? Well, $400-700 annually depending on where you live. For a $10k car, after 20 years of easily pays for another car if you never had any claims against it.
But for a one-time $1k cost for protecting against most surges seems like potentially falling into the boundary for me, particularly with an old house.
Anyone have any experience with these whole home surge protectors and were they worth it to you?
IANAEE, but I am CS and handy around electronics. Not all surges are from a direct line strike. We had a nearby strike, could have been cloud to ground or cloud to tree or even cloud to cloud at our old house.
It fried the garage door opener and a computer KVM switch. I saw arcing between my desk lamp's metal base and an unused VGA connector's ground shield (sub 1cm distance, but greater than 1mm). There wasn't damage anywhere else that makes me think it was a line surge, rather the lamp's coiled cord (or maybe a coiled shielded VGA cable?) and the garage door opener's detector runs seem to have been oriented right to induct sufficient to start terminating things.
You might consider a rider on your insurance, if it has one available. I have a computers rider. It is cheap per year, covers up to 3k in damages, with no deductible. Used it once successfully when a laptop died -- worked at work, no longer worked when I got home. It probably had the CPU or other BGA crack and became dead half-dead. Power LED lit up but it never started the fan/screen or hit the HDD.
Honestly given how little the rider costs and that first failure (they didn't repair, just paid out original purchase price, which wasn't a ton because the laptop was a netbook), I'm even-up till my 80s.
Whole home surge protection isn't the worst idea in the world, especially if you live out in more rural areas or your part of the power grid is already a bit wonky.
I know what I'm about to suggest is something more expensive on its own than what's been suggested thus far, is a conditional usage situation, and may not even be approved by local building code or your power utility despite having extensive UL certification and code approval... but, it's worth knowing about if for no other reason than to not only add additional power protection to the house, but also adds generator connectivity and possible resale value as it kinda kills two birds with one stone while still falling into the roughly $ originally cited price point. It's worth noting that we're considering one of these ourselves for our house after the ice storm that knocked our power out for a week last month.
GenerLink Transfer Switches (also normally available through Home Depot) come in models with and without whole home surge. It's basically a cuff that installs on the meter box between the box itself and the meter that provides both an auto-switching generator connection for your home without needing all the additional modifications/upgrades to your existing breaker panel and additional wiring, plus some of the models also provide whole home surge suppression. The most expensive one is $875 plus permits and installation (if, again, your city and utility both permit it - most do now) but that $875 gives you both a generator plug with a 40A rated transfer switch plus a 75kA surge protector per phase that'll work for homes with up to 200A service. Plus, it gives you the flexibility of providing power to any circuit in the house just by toggling breakers instead of having to pick and choose at install time which circuits to include and leave dark with a normal generator switch, so long as you don't plug in more than a total of seven, lest your wiring go KUH-POOEY! or your generator go DRICK!
I figure that if whole home surge protection is genuinely wanted/needed, having a fallback generator isn't too far off on the list behind it. Being able to add both for a bit more than a pro install of only one with a single device seems like a really clever idea and frugal application of resources for adding both features to a home.
In my house I try to have three elements for surge protectors. The type-2 protector installed in the main panel, a plug-in surge protector on the branch circuits, then for TVs and computers, a surge protector on every data and power connection that enters the &#;bubble&#; around that device.
The type 2 protector, should be installed on a breaker at the top of the panel, but the problem is that most high load appliance are already occupying these spots, and their heavy and short wires make it hard to move them. Also these breakers are often 30-40amp ratings, but many SPDs require 20amp two pole breaker. So while I personally piggy-backed my SPD onto my 40amp oven breaker, it&#;s not to code, but it&#;s the best I can do given the much worse alternatives, like not having it there at all. Some newer panels have a provision for a SPD to fix this problem.
The second point is that surge can come from lighting strokes and from transmission lines touching things during wind storms, but also can come from inside the home. That&#;s why the washer/dryer, sump pump, AC condenser, garage plugs should have a type-3 SPD, to stop locally generated surges from traveling back to the panel. I like the $5 appliance ones for fridges which have a buzzer if they are surge-damaged and also the ones that have the screw to hold it into the wall fixture.
Lastly surges can travel up power wires, but also RG6 antenna, cable and DSL wires. Also HDMI wires if they run around the house. So my approach is to imagine a bubble around the device like a TV, any wire that enters, needs a SPD. This is why power strips have normal outlets but also coax, RG45 &#;Ethernet&#; and RG11 &#;&#; plugs on them. They make HDMI, Ethernet, RG6 coax SPDs and the bubble-of-protection should have each protected. TV antenna coax should have a ~$6 GDT (gas-discharge-tube) with a good path to ground where it enters the house.
Among the last options to protecting for surges are some extreme steps, and would be something like installing a ground conductor all around the house with a ground spikes periodically placed. This makes the voltage in the earth itself equal on all sides of the building. And a ground ring in the eves and lighting spikes on the peaks of the roof. People in especially Florida but also other parts of the south need to consider these things. I needed to research this because my arc welder was causing interference in my house, so I had to put in a separate ground spike for it and my weld work table, per the instruction on the welder. Then I wanted to connect the main ground spike to the new one with a solid 6awg conductor buried in the around ½ way around the house, works like a charm.
> I have never lost an appliance to a surge maybe where I live they just aren&#;t as big , not sure my T.Vs are not surge protected we have had 3 power outages this summer the TVs are just fine and 2 of those times the power went on and off twice very quickly we do have surge perotectors on our computers .
Please visit our website for more information on this topic.
First, all appliances already contain protection - often more robust than what is in plug-in protectors.
Second, if anything needs protection, then everything needs that protection including furnace, bathroom and kitchen GFCIs, LED and CFL bulbs, TVs, recharging electronics, dishwasher, central air, security system, clock radios, dimmer switches, and the most critical appliance if a surge exists: smoke detectors.
Third, you had no damage because destructive surges are rare - maybe once every seven years is a typical number. A number that can vary significantly even in the same town due to conditions such as geology.
Fourth, among items that need protection are plug-in protectors. Worse case, these can every make damage to nearby appliances easier. In rare cases, cause fires. Why would anyone spend tens of times more money for these near zero devices? It is called a surge protector. For some reason that is complete proof that it does 100% protection. A major difference exists in those two similar words.
Fifth, 'whole house' protector are even in Lowes and Home Depot for well less than $100. But this parameter is critical. Lightning can be 20,000 amps. So a minimal 'whole house' protector is 50,000 amps. Because any protector that fails (even on a direct lightning strike) is ineffective protection. Effective protection means nobody even knew a surge existed - even with direct lightning strikes.
Sixth, outages are not surges. Outages do not cause hardware damage. No surge protector even claims to protect hardware from an outage.
Seventh, no protector does protection - not even a 'whole house' protector. Protectors are only connecting devices to an item that must harmlessly absorb hundreds of thousands of joules. Most critical items that must always exist ion every protection 'system' (even if no protectors exist) is single point earth ground. Above number described simple science for an effective protector. A dedicated wire connects up to 50,000 amps to earth. But the item that actually does protection is single point earth ground. Effective protector connects low impedance (ie less than 10 feet) to this most critical device.
Even a utility installed 'whole house' protector is ineffective if an item that you are responsible for does not exist and is not sufficiently upgraded. And yes, this 7th item should be the target of most questions.
What does not have that always required earth ground? Ineffective plug-in protectors with obscene profit margins and plenty of consumers deceived by fancy advertising. And a near zero joules number. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground. A 'whole house' protector has a dedicated wire to connect to that ground. Plug-in protectors do not; and will not discuss it.
Monster has a long history of identifying scams. Then selling an equivalent product for even higher prices.
Monster once said reversed speaker wire would subvert sound. They sold speaker wire with ends marked for speaker and amp. Consumers would reverse these wires (hook the speaker end to an amp) and claim sound was distorted. Monster sold these $7 speaker wires for $70. This is an honest company?
Where is one number that says that Monster does effective protection? Compare its spec numbers to a protector selling in Walmart for $10. Show me. What numbers claim a Monster is better?
'Whole house' protector costs about $1 per protected appliance. How much was that Monster?
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Ctech Trade.
UPS provides even less protection. How many joules does it claim to absorb? Hundreds? To be any smaller, it would have to be zero joules. Where is that protection?
Electronics already do those many conversions. If a UPS is effective, then what is a UPS doing better? Output from my 120 volt sine wave UPS: 200 volts square waves with a spike of up to 270 volts. This may be harmful to motorized appliances. And perfectly fine for all electronics - due to robust protection already inside electronic appliances. Electronics already do that isolation better - and more.
Where is one number that says that Monster does effective protection? Compare its spec numbers to a protector selling in Walmart for $10. Show me. What numbers claim a Monster is better?
Monster does not even claim protection. Nothing even implied you had protection. Some subjective beliefs say nothing useful.
Effective protection was proven even 100 years ago. Effective protection means a low impedance (ie less than 10 foot) connection to earth. Monster does not have that. Somehow price *proves* Monster is better? Monster need not make any protection claims. A high price targets consumers who will buy anything only because it is more expensive. Monster could even sell $7 speaker wire for $70. Those consumers even heard a difference - because it was more expensive.
What happens when everything comes online at once? Voltage rises slowly. Electronics prefer to be powered on by this method. Motorized appliances do not. So a Monster should be on appliances at risk - ie refrigerator and A/C units. Why do you know power restoration is destructive when numbers say otherwise? Where are numbers than claim a Monster does anything useful?
Informed consumers spend about $1 per protected appliance for a 'whole house' solution. Then everything (including a Monster) is protected from surges that typically do damage. Then hundreds of thousands of joules remain outside. A protector is only as effective as its earth ground - that Monster does not have and will not even discuss.
> They say that you can run into problems with false positives, like if your washer or dryer pulls a sudden surge of power and trips the breaker.
You have confused completely different and unrelated anomalies. 'Whole house' protectors trip no breakers. Defective appliances (ie leaking currents) are addressed by a GFCI. A human safety issue. Destructive surges are addressed by earthing and a 'whole house' protector A transistor safety issue.
No false positive exists with 'whole house' protection. When a 'whole house' protector does its job (protect transistors), nobody even knew it did anything. When a GFCI does its job (protect human life), power remains off until a human restores it.
Apparently you confused two completely different devices that have no common functions. Since all this is so knew, well, we all (should have) learned this in school. Anything that is new is not learned until after at least three rereads. Go back and reread relevant posts.
A 'whole house' protector tips no breakers.
Electricins do not say what you have only assumed.
For more ABB Surge Protectorinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.