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How effective/useful are whole house suppressors that are installed at the panels? Or are they just make-work for electricians and are of marginal use? There seem to be a mix of views on the internet.
No surge suppressor will protect against a direct lightning strike
Quote:
Originally Posted by MaggieGreene
How effective/useful are whole house suppressors that are installed at the panels? Or are they just make-work for electricians and are of marginal use? There seem to be a mix of views on the internet.
How reliable/clean is your local electrical service?
Most use the same MOV technology as found in a power strip, just bigger and beefier.
How frequently do you get dropouts (brief interruptions)?
How often do lights dim or flash a little bright?
If you have a computer UPS, how often do you hear it trip?
Do you have a history of small electrical devices and light bulbs failing prematurely?
How far out in the sticks are you - sub/urban, outskirts suburban, rural?
Those aren't absolutes, but generally if you haven't had any of those problems and are close in to the next level of the distribution grid, a whole-house protector won't do a lot of good. Most devices are fairly well protected and it's simple enough to plug TVs and other expensive, fixed gear into an individual protector.
I live in a pretty urbanized suburban area. I get a brief interruption, maybe once a week or two weeks. I heard my computer’s surge suppressor trip, maybe once? My light bulbs do seem to fail prematurely, but probably because they are mostly LEDs with poor quality control (some fail early, some have lasted years). They do dim occasionally whenever the furnaces or printer turns on.
I’m not worried about appliances that are connected to the surge suppressors, but for things such as washers, dryers, dishwashers, a/c, whole house humidifiers, etc. that aren’t on surge suppressors.
I’m not worried about appliances that are connected to the surge suppressors, but for things such as washers, dryers, dishwashers, a/c, whole house humidifiers, etc. that aren’t on surge suppressors.
Do neighbors report problems?
Whole-house units are oversold, I think. Go buy three or four really good local protectors - into light commercial grade, not what Best Buy has on sale - and put them on TVs, plug-in computers etc. Most big appliances are more immune/better protected, although control panels can be a little delicate.
The real destroyer is lightning, against which spike protectors are almost completely useless. Make sure your electrical service is as strike-protected as it can get, use those local protectors on delicate stuff, and move on.
I do not like MOV surge suppressor strips at all, I consider them a fire hazard. I cannot tell you how many fire calls I have been to where the point of origin was a surge strip.
The risk from them comes from the way the MOV functions as a suppressor. When triggered by an overvoltage event they shunt the voltage to ground. An undesired side effect is sometimes the destruction of the MOV and smoke or fire that destroys the cheep plastic case igniting anything close by.
Of course overloaded plug strips also start fires so be safe when using them
Anything that has a MOV without a fuse or breaker is just a firestarter waiting to be lit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevink1955
I do not like MOV surge suppressor strips at all, I consider them a fire hazard. I cannot tell you how many fire calls I have been to where the point of origin was a surge strip. The risk from them comes from the way the MOV functions as a suppressor. When triggered by an overvoltage event they shunt the voltage to ground. An undesired side effect is sometimes the destruction of the MOV and smoke or fire that destroys the cheep plastic case igniting anything close by. Of course overloaded plug strips also start fires so be safe when using them
Thermal Runaway is fun, and is all the more reason to deploy one large whole-house surge suppressor in a metal casing!
There's no more than one or two brief interruptions a year (that I actually notice) in our non-profit, public utility company's electrical service. A couple of clocks that need re-setting after an interruption, let me know when this has happened. Of course, there are other breaks in service, caused by wind and ice storms, but in almost 20 years, I've never suffered any damage caused by a surge, with no suppressors in my house.
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No surge suppressor will protect against a direct lightning strike
Anything that has a MOV without a fuse or breaker is just a firestarter waiting to be lit.
