Do Whole House Surge protector really work?

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You want to protect your computer, laptop, and other expense home office supplies from a power surge. You’ve gotten those power strips that are designed with surge protectors in them, but will that really help in the event of a power surge?

Power strips are limited in their ability to protect your home, and your valuable electronics, from damage. If you truly want to keep your home safe from a power surge, you will need whole house power surge protection.

What is a power surge?

Power is designed to flow through most of your outlets at 120 volts. A power surge is when something causes the power to exceed that voltage, often in a sudden manner such as when a storm damages a powerline. When this happens, items that aren’t designed to handle it may overheat, or have their circuitry damaged from the unexpected power.

It’s not just storms that can cause the problem either. Even other appliances, or high demand for power in your neighborhood, can end up causing a power surge.

How Whole House Surge Protection Works

A whole house surge protector is a device that is hardwired to your electrical system itself. They range in type and quality, with some of the best surge protectors being able to stop surges of up to 40,000 amps. Because they are hardwired into your system itself and need to be properly grounded, this is not a project you should try to DIY. An electrician needs to work on your system to make sure it is safe.

If you decide to try and DIY a home surge protector, you may end up damaging your home.

Do they really work?

A whole house surge protector likely won’t be able to stop a power surge from a direct, or nearly direct, lightning strike to your house. If your house is in the direct path of a lightning storm, turning your appliances off and waiting it out is still the best solution.

It will however help with power surges from more distant lightning strikes, in-house power surges from things like your heating and cooling cycling, and almost every other kind of power surge. Power surges can happen at any time, and aren’t limited to storms. You don’t want to unexpectedly lose your appliances simply because your air conditioning turned on.

Why you need them

How much are the appliances in your house worth? If you stop to tally all of the different appliances up, you may be surprised at how much your appliances are worth. What would you do if you suddenly and unexpectedly needed to replace them all?

Appliances can be expensive, and power surges have the ability to destroy them. A whole house surge protector can be the security you need to keep your appliances safe.

If you want to keep your valuables safer and add value to your home, a whole house surge protector is a useful addition. Contact an electrician today and learn more about getting one installed.