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Thread: Whole house surge protection- any thoughts?

  1. #1
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    Whole house surge protection- any thoughts?

    With power being restored to the island bit by bit, a lot of folks have lost expensive appliances to the surges. We bought surge protectors for the expensive stuff, and my wife asked if there was a surge protector for the whole house you could get. I googled it, and it appears there is.

    https://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-...FYcBPwodQeMFIQ

    At this price, why wouldn't every house have them as a standard thing? Anyone want to give me any pointers on selecting a good model?

    Edit: By the way, I told my wife, "Let me ask the folks on SMC." She said, "Isn't that a woodworking forum?" I replied, "They know a little of everything."
    Last edited by Malcolm Schweizer; 12-27-2017 at 9:11 AM.

  2. #2
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    I have had one for probably 10 years, inexpensive model, I think it is an InterMatic. Haven't lost anything to a power surge, but then I don't know if I have ever had a power surge since it was installed. Probably not as both LED's are still burning red. Cheap insurance that just may help. Couldn't hurt. Our cruise ship stopped at the USVI one week prior to the hurricane, so sad for all of your losses.
    NOW you tell me...

  3. #3
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    I watched a video and now I'm confused- it appears it hooks to the bus bar- I thought it would hook between the main service line and the box.

  4. #4
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    Mine just snaps in like a two pole breaker and I believe has a wire that goes to ground. The directions said to put it closest to the incoming line
    Steve Jenkins, McKinney, TX. 469 742-9694
    Always use the word "impossible" with extreme caution

  5. #5
    I had an electrician install one for me. It is a separate box upstream of the breaker box. I did this after losing 2 supposedly surge protected modems and some other electronics 3 years ago. Surges are a regular occurrence in my rural area.
    Dave Anderson

    Chester, NH

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Malcolm Schweizer View Post
    I watched a video and now I'm confused- it appears it hooks to the bus bar- I thought it would hook between the main service line and the box.
    It absorbs transients - so a voltage above the expected value "trips" something inside it and it absorbs the energy of the surge. It doesn't disconnect the service.

  7. #7
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    I've often wondered why lightning rods on homes were not more common.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Calow View Post
    I've often wondered why lightning rods on homes were not more common.
    My last house had one. Someone, probably decades and decades ago, drove a phone pole into the ground next to the house and put a lightning rod on top of it. The discharge wire ran down the side and into the ground. So far as I know, in the 17 years I lived there, it never took a hit.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stan Calow View Post
    I've often wondered why lightning rods on homes were not more common.
    Mostly because they really don't work. They were intended to bleed the ground charge into the atmosphere thereby making the house a less likely target. However, unless you keep the tips sharp and clean they tend not to discharge the static charge.

    There are newer systems that do work, but they are very expensive. We installed such a system on the Biofuel Plant that I helped build in NW PA and they have recorded hundreds of hits. It consists of a ground plane and a number of domed receptors mounted at the high points of the facility.
    Lee Schierer
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    My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute

  10. #10
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    We had them on the house I grew up in I remember it getting hit twice. We also had a 60 tall steel smoke stack that would get hit about once a year. I remember one time I was going into the service building when it got hit I thought I went deaf.

  11. #11
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    There are two different kinds of surge protectors. The larger, more expensive ones that get connected directly to your main breaker box are intended for protection against incoming service line surges like from lightening and sometimes when power gets restored. But we all have items in our homes that create surges, mostly items with motors like refrigerators, washing machines, sump pumps, etc. And for those surges internal to the house surge protecting AC strips or special surge protecting individual circuit breakers that supply power to sensitive, expensive electronic devices like computers, TVs and audio equipment should also be used.

  12. #12
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    I had a lighting strike the ground near my shop and it took out a bunch of stuff all through the ground wire. My cnc controller was the worst the ground wire and most of the ground traces were burnt off my welder had scorch marks on the ground wire even though the breaker was off. ground wires on other equipment also showed signs of scorching.

  13. #13
    There is a small village near here, Collinsville, that sits a bit higher than most of the surrounding country. At least half the houses there have lightning rods, some have two or three. A friend that lives there has lost all his appliances twice in 20 years. The last time some of his wiring was fried. The lightning hit a tree next to his house and must have lit up everything with in 50 ft, because even the old water pipe to the barn a few ft under ground was blown up.

    We have had some real window rattling close strikes to trees on the hill a couple hundred yards away. Even had a couple storms in which your hair stands straight up. When we built the new house, we had a surge protector put in but the electrician said they do not protect against certain kinds of strikes. At our old house, the well pump went twice in 20 years both times during electrical storms, but the well pump is on a different meter and electrical box because it is 450 ft from the houses

    We have a very small (circa 1910) house on the farm and I had a licensed electrician rewire the house starting with a new service head, meter and box. He installed new energy saving fixtures, the LED ceiling lights in the bedrooms glow for hours, after an electrical storm. Not bright like they are turned on, but enough that they can be seen through a window. like a dim night light. Had him back out to check and he found nothing wrong. It's been like that for three years now.
    Last edited by Perry Hilbert Jr; 12-30-2017 at 6:27 AM.

  14. #14
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    We had a breaker-style snap in one at our last house and an Eaton one that mounts off the side of the box. Do they work? Not sure, but knock on wood we haven't lost anything to surges. Maybe it works, maybe we are lucky.


  15. #15
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    Many protection devices are designed to fail, similar to a fuse, when they are hit by a major surge. So it pays to check occasionally if the LED's are still lit. We just installed a 3 phase surge protector at church after a surge fried over $5000 in boards for our elevator, protector alone was over $1,000, but has a replaceable module for each phase.
    NOW you tell me...

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