Surge Protection

Homes today are in more need of whole house surge pro­tec­tion than before. Due to the advanced elec­tron­ics, appli­ances, heat­ing, light­ing and high-tech enter­tain­ment cen­ters, the aver­age home has a huge invest­ment in elec­tron­ic equip­ment. AC (alter­nat­ing cur­rent) surges are not caused by light­ning only. Besides adverse weath­er con­di­tions, some­thing as sim­ple as elec­tric motor activ­i­ty with­in a build­ing (air con­di­tion­ers, ele­va­tors, copiers, print­ers and refrig­er­a­tors, for instance) can cause pow­er fluc­tu­a­tions. Surge pro­tec­tors extend the life­time of sen­si­tive elec­tron­ic equip­ment by pro­tect­ing it against harm­ful pow­er surges and over­volt­age prob­lems.

Choose qual­i­ty surge pro­tec­tion strips for inside your home. Not every pow­er strip is a surge pro­tec­tor. While a pow­er strip just splits your out­let into mul­ti­ple ports, a surge pro­tec­tor is designed to pro­tect your com­put­er, TV, and oth­er elec­tron­ics against pow­er surges and any inter­fer­ence or noise on your pow­er line. You should look for the words surge pro­tec­tion, fused strip, or inter­rupter switch. If it says pow­er strip on it, it most like­ly does not offer surge pro­tec­tion.

Whole Home Surge Protection

When look­ing for whole house surge pro­tec­tion devices keep the fol­low­ing in mind. Most homes with 120-volt ser­vice can be ade­quate­ly pro­tect­ed with a max­i­mum 80kA-rat­ed surge pro­tec­tor.  Chances are a home is not going to see large spikes. Homes with sub­pan­els should have added pro­tec­tion of about half the kA rat­ing of the main unit. We rec­om­mend you con­tact an elec­tri­cian for info and an esti­mate.

Layered Surge Protection

Lay­ered pro­tec­tion can help If an appli­ance or device sends a surge through a cir­cuit that’s shared among oth­er devices and not ded­i­cat­ed, then those oth­er out­lets could be sus­cep­ti­ble to a surge. Which is why you don’t want it just at the elec­tri­cal pan­el. Surge pro­tec­tion should be lay­ered in the house to be at both the elec­tri­cal ser­vice to pro­tect the whole home and at the point of use to pro­tect sen­si­tive elec­tron­ics.

5 Things to Consider Before You Buy

Buy the right number of ports. 

Don’t just assume that every surge pro­tec­tor is six or eight ports. Buy­ing the right num­ber of ports will make sure you don’t have to daisy chain surge pro­tec­tors and loose the pro­tec­tion you thought you were get­ting.

Consider what you will plug into the surge protector.

You can go all out and buy the best you can afford, but you’ll save some mon­ey by buy­ing a surge pro­tec­tor appro­pri­ate for the equip­ment you’ll use it with. Your TV and home enter­tain­ment cen­ter will call for a more robust surge pro­tec­tor than the lamp and phone charg­er on a night­stand.

Check for the UL seal, and make sure it’s a “transient voltage surge suppressor.”

Mak­ing sure that the surge pro­tec­tor you’re plan­ning to buy is both cer­ti­fied by Underwriter’s Lab­o­ra­to­ries, and at least meets their UL 1449 stan­dards (required for the label “tran­sient volt­age surge sup­pres­sor,”) will make sure the surge pro­tec­tor you take home will actu­al­ly pro­tect the equip­ment you plug into it.

Check the surge protector’s energy absorption rating, and its “clamping voltage.”

The absorp­tion rat­ing is, as the name implies, how much ener­gy it can absorb before it fails. You’ll want some­thing at least 6–700 joules or high­er. (High­er is bet­ter here.) The clamp­ing volt­age is the volt­age that will trig­ger the surge protector—or essen­tial­ly when the surge pro­tec­tor wakes up and starts absorb­ing ener­gy. Look for some­thing around 400 V or less. Low­er is bet­ter here. Final­ly, see if response time is list­ed in the prod­uct details—it’s good to know, and low­er is bet­ter.

Check the warranty.

Some surge pro­tec­tors war­ran­ty the devices con­nect­ed to it for some amount of dam­ages if a pow­er surge does get through. Check to see what’s cov­ered (and what isn’t), and how you can file a war­ran­ty claim if the surge pro­tec­tor fails.