A power surge may last for only a few millionths of a second, but during that brief time, thousands of volts circulate your houses electrical system, frying circuit boards in your refrigerator or microwave, crashing computer hard drives, and damaging home-theater systems.
Lightning induced surges are the most powerful and the most damaging, but the fact is most surge-related damage is not caused by lightning. Far more frequent are surges caused by power company generated surges, downed power lines, air conditioners, motors and other high current electrical devices within the home. The damage inflicted minor power fluctuations may not show up for sometime, but each time an appliance takes one of these small hits it is shortening the life of the unit. One day the unit just stops working! Power surges can also enter the home via telephone, DSL and cable lines.
To guard against surges, protection should follow a two-pronged approach, a whole-house surge suppressor to tame the large power spikes and a power strip style surge suppressor to catch the smaller AC spikes that get through the whole house unit, for sensitive electronic devices and computers. During normal use a surge suppressor allows electricity to flow through them, but when the line voltage exceeds the surge suppressors rated clamping voltage the excess voltage is diverted to ground, usually within fractions of a millisecond.
A whole-house suppressor is hard-wired to the electrical service panel, a process that takes a licensed electrician a couple of hours. Look for Whole-house surge suppressors that are rated for 45,000 Amps peak maximum surge current, at a minimum. Other features include thermal protection, and lights or alarms that indicate when a device has taken a hit. Some whole-house units provide protection for phone and cable lines as well. Whole-house suppressors can not stop surges completely, excess voltage may still get through, this is where "plug-in" surge protectors come in to play offering an additional line of protection for more sensitive electronic hardware.
When purchasing any surge protection device look to be sure the unit meets or exceeds these specifications.
- Look for any power strip style unit to meet UL1449 2.5 edition and any whole house model to meet UL1449 3rd edition.
- Has a clamping voltage of 400 volts or less, the lower the clamping voltage the better the protection.
- Protects all three incoming lines: hot, neutral, and ground. Look for "L-N, L-G, N-G" (line to neutral, line to ground, neutral to ground).
- Has joule rating of 750 joules or more.
- Whole house units and surge strips can get damaged by surges without you knowing it has done its job and saved your equipment. Make sure any unit you purchase has indicator lights or better yet stops functioning when its circuits are damaged by a surge.
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