Whole house surge protection.

[Spork Schivago]

I don't know if this is the right place to post, but I have a question involving whole house surge protectors. I am slowly building up my collection of test equipment, and some of it is pretty expensive. On my workbench, I have a 15 outlet power strip. It's about 6 feet long. I was looking into surge protectors but couldn't find one around that length (I really like the length, I have outlets just about anywhere on my table). I ran across something called a whole home surge protector. Here's a link to one:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Eaton-Who...6?N=5yc1vZc4nx

Has anyone used anything like this before? Are they fairly simple to hook up and are the effective? Where I live, it seems to rain just about every other day in the summer. We get a lot of thunderstorms. Constantly, people are bringing me broken stuff to fix shortly after a storm. If I could protect my whole house, that'd be simply amazing! Thanks.

[goontron]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

surge != lightning protection in the case of direct hits. however, if lightning hits line, it helps a lot by clamping to ground. either way i never discourage this type of thing. GO FOR IT! its a $500 job if you go for the high end of the high end, but otherwise its fairly cheap. if you have electric heat or a heat pump or central air put it across that (fairly large) breaker.

[stj]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

something i'v always wondered about bussbar protectors, is how big the bang is when they fail!!!

if you have seen a MOV blow in a psu or some other bit of kit you will know what i mean.

[goontron]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

something i'v always wondered about bussbar protectors, is how big the bang is when they fail!!!

if you have seen a MOV blow in a psu or some other bit of kit you will know what i mean.

ive seen one go. its mainly contained minus some smoke out of the mounting. however, this bloke put it on the incoming from the meter, no breakers.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

surge != lightning protection in the case of direct hits. however, if lightning hits line, it helps a lot by clamping to ground. either way i never discourage this type of thing. GO FOR IT! its a $500 job if you go for the high end of the high end, but otherwise its fairly cheap. if you have electric heat or a heat pump or central air put it across that (fairly large) breaker.

Okay. 500$ if I do it myself or are these things something I'd need to hire a professional to do? Also, after a storm, people bring my their dead PCs. For some reason, it's almost always the modem that got fried, not the power supply. And if I remove the modem, the PCs generally start working again. I figured it probably wasn't a direct strike on the telephone lines, but perhaps a near by strike. Does that make sense?

We don't have electric heat but we do have a pump that pushes water through hoses under the house the heat the floors. There's no registers or vents. Just the hoses. An outside furnace heats the water and there's a pump on the furnace that pushes it through. We're doing away with the furnace next year and have to find a new type of heat. Not sure what we're going to do.

From what I've been reading, this type of whole home surge protection is something that I would use on-top of regular wall surge protectors, is that correct? At first I thought it was in place of the wall surge protectors. It seems like it will just protect us more but we still need the ones we plug into the wall outlets.

[rhomanski]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

About 15 years ago, a women was on the internet during a storm in an Atlanta suburb. Lightning struck near the house. The news said it traveled into the home on a water pipe. Ran into the power line. To the computer. Through the mouse wires. Into her hand. Down her body and out her big toe. Left a big blackened hole on her toe. Otherwise she was unharmed. She did say from now on she would hide during storms.

[goontron]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

Okay. 500$ if I do it myself or are these things something I'd need to hire a professional to do? Also, after a storm, people bring my their dead PCs. For some reason, it's almost always the modem that got fried, not the power supply. And if I remove the modem, the PCs generally start working again. I figured it probably wasn't a direct strike on the telephone lines, but perhaps a near by strike. Does that make sense?

We don't have electric heat but we do have a pump that pushes water through hoses under the house the heat the floors. There's no registers or vents. Just the hoses. An outside furnace heats the water and there's a pump on the furnace that pushes it through. We're doing away with the furnace next year and have to find a new type of heat. Not sure what we're going to do.

From what I've been reading, this type of whole home surge protection is something that I would use on-top of regular wall surge protectors, is that correct? At first I thought it was in place of the wall surge protectors. It seems like it will just protect us more but we still need the ones we plug into the wall outlets.

thats for the high end of the high end device http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/Produ...minisite=10251, you are looking more like somewhere around $100 for the base unit http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-...-203540660-_-N
i would personally do it my self, but i know how 240v feels when it chucks you into a wall.

[ben7]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

something i'v always wondered about bussbar protectors, is how big the bang is when they fail!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFTwqcf6M6g
Like that? xD (The first test)

Do keep in mind, that devices with MOVs can only stop surges so much before they fail. They are [hopefully] designed so they won't start a fire when that happens. So if you get a LOT of surges, you might have to keep an eye on it, to replace it if it ever fails.

I've got a large power strip (like 6 feet long, I think) at my workbench as well ... one of the best things ever to invest in!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFTwqcf6M6g
Like that? xD (The first test)

Do keep in mind, that devices with MOVs can only stop surges so much before they fail. They are [hopefully] designed so they won't start a fire when that happens. So if you get a LOT of surges, you might have to keep an eye on it, to replace it if it ever fails.

I've got a large power strip (like 6 feet long, I think) at my workbench as well ... one of the best things ever to invest in!

I'm currently using one of those power strips (around 6 feet long, 15 outlets) but from looking at it, I don't think it protects against surges, does it? Just a simple power strip. I love it because the outlets are spread about 4 -5 inches apart and it's pretty much as long as my workbench. Any time I need to plug in a device, no matter where I am on my workbench, I have an outlet.

[ben7]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

I'm currently using one of those power strips (around 6 feet long, 15 outlets) but from looking at it, I don't think it protects against surges, does it? Just a simple power strip. I love it because the outlets are spread about 4 -5 inches apart and it's pretty much as long as my workbench. Any time I need to plug in a device, no matter where I am on my workbench, I have an outlet.

No I they are just outlet strips. At least I think mine is.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

thats for the high end of the high end device http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/Produ...minisite=10251, you are looking more like somewhere around $100 for the base unit http://www.homedepot.com/p/Square-D-...-203540660-_-N
i would personally do it my self, but i know how 240v feels when it chucks you into a wall.

With something like this, would it be best to go for the top-of-the-line models? Or is a cheaper one just fine? Here, we have 120V. We can get 240V if we need it, but we have to call the electric company and have them run a wire to the pole. My dad has that in his house for his welders.

[ben7]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

With something like this, would it be best to go for the top-of-the-line models? Or is a cheaper one just fine? Here, we have 120V. We can get 240V if we need it, but we have to call the electric company and have them run a wire to the pole. My dad has that in his house for his welders.

You probably have 240V already. Two legs of 120V, connected in the center. At least we have that at my place. Big things like the AC unit run off the 240V.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

I know every single outlet in this house is 120V. Let me take a picture of the breaker box. I'm sorry if they're sideways.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

So essentially, those big wires in the first picture are the 240VAC's and the breaker box somehow splits them? I double checked with my dad, and with his, they didn't run a special wire from the pole. Just from the breaker box, thus confirming your suspicions. My dad says all the wire in our house, except for the washer / dryer is 12-2 (whatever that means). I'm afraid if I had all my equipment running from one power strip, it might trip the breaker. I wonder what the maximum size breaker I can have with 12-2 wire. Most of the breakers in our box are 20A. A few are 30A and a few are 50A. Usually, the 30A and 50A are tied together with another breaker. You know, you flip one and it automatically flips another. I'm thinking those 50A ones are the washer / dryer (which is probably 240V, right?)

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

Okay, another update, the dryer is 240V, the washer is 120V, the fridge is 120V, the ACs are 120V.

[stj]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

you have some pretty lax safety regulations there,
in Europe those incoming terminals would have to have TWO grubscrews to hold the wire in incase one works loose.

it also looks like you have aluminium wire - we had that but it's being phased out because of the losses.

[budm]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

It looks like one of the incoming Phase wire (top) got hot.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...0&d=1431030372
Houses in the US are fed by 120/240VAC SPLIT-PHASE (120-0-120)

[TechGeek]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

About 15 years ago, a women was on the internet during a storm in an Atlanta suburb. Lightning struck near the house. The news said it traveled into the home on a water pipe. Ran into the power line. To the computer. Through the mouse wires. Into her hand. Down her body and out her big toe. Left a big blackened hole on her toe. Otherwise she was unharmed. She did say from now on she would hide during storms.

Lemme guess, an eMachines computer?

[ben7]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

It looks like one of the incoming Phase wire (top) got hot.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...0&d=1431030372
Houses in the US are fed by 120/240VAC SPLIT-PHASE (120-0-120)

Looks to me like it didn't, it seems that there was some sort of anti-oxidant grease put on there, which sort of makes it look like it has been melted.

[stj]

Re: Whole house surge protection.

could be worth checking it's tight with an insulated allen key or hex-bit though.