Is Whole Home Surge Protection Worth Investing In?
Everyday across the country, countless homeowners lost their TVs, video game systems, computers, phones, appliances, and a whole host of other electrical devices to power surges. When a power surge hits your home, there is a very good chance that you are going to face more than just a flickering of your lights. In fact, power surges end up costing many homeowners thousands of dollars in electrical repair and replacement costs every year. With power surges being such a potentially disastrous occurrence, the question then becomes: is whole home surge protection, installed by a professional electrician like Mandia Electric, a worthwhile investment?
What Is A Power Surge?
To begin with, a power surge is a short burst of electricity that can range anywhere from a hundred to hundreds of thousands of volts. Depending on the strength of the surge, these can damage or completely kill any of your valuable electrical equipment that isn’t suitably protected.
What Causes A Power Surge?
There are a number of different factors that can lead to a power surge, some of which are extremely common throughout your home. Some of the most common causes of power surges include things like motors starting up, which can create small surges that will degrade your electronic devices over time. Utility companies can also produce surges as electricity is delivered, which can actually be a great deal stronger than those generated inside the house. Downed power lines can also be a common cause of strong power surges, while lightning strikes can cause devastating damage to your home’s electronics if they aren’t properly protected.
Whole Home Surge Protection
Electricity seeks the path of least resistance to the ground, and having a whole home surge protector installed on your main panel can help to redirect that electricity into the ground conductor before it is able to get into the circuits in your home’s electrical panel. To make sure your home has optimal protection against excess electricity, you will want to ensure that each panel has a whole home surge protector installed.
Will A Whole Home Surge Protector Stop All Surges?
The short answer is, no. Very strong power surges may destroy the surge device or some of the surge might get past it, which makes it important to layer your protection. Most engineers will recommend that you cascade your surge protection devices, forming multiple layers of defense for your home. Surge strips make up an excellent second line of defense, and can provide an effective backup to absorb any excess electricity that makes it past the protection installed on your electrical panel.
Are Plug-In Protection Strips Enough?
Again, the answer is no. Plug-in surge protectors serve as an excellent second line of defense, but they simply don’t have the capacity on their own to provide adequate protection. When you combine them with a whole home surge protector, however, you will have an effective network of defense to make sure your home is well protected against stray power surges.
