Electrical Protection

[charles meyer]

My talented listmates,

I was curious if you use a whole house surger protector?

Did you hire an electrician to install it?

Do you also use (or in place of a whole house surger protector) a UPS
for each appliance?

e.g. 1 for the fridge + 1 for the electric water heater + 1 for the
oven + 1 for the clothes washer, etc.

Or do you find a surge protector for each instead of a UPS is
suffcaner coverage from lighting srikes, power surges, tariffs?

Thank you,

Charles.

[Davie]

None of the above. Some of the power strips that I use have an over current breaker but that won't do anything with a lightening strike. I'm not sure what would save from a lightening strike, however.
I guess I'm 20yrs into having a pile of electronic devices plugged in and have never had something fail from a power surge/ lightening so I just roll with it.
FWIW my attitude is the definition of complacency.
- Davie

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[Nick Terrible]

Charles,

Sorry for the length, a bit of a brain dump.  Answers in no particular order:

I live in an apartment. I don't have a whole house protector however I know a fair amount.  Also, I work for a power company..  (Don't hold that against me.) ;)

Yes you need an electrician, because they install it right before or in the breaker box.  

Before they started putting computers in everything the need for surge protection was a lot lower.  The non-electronic equipment in a house (fridge/washer/etc).usually can handle a surge better.

Computers damage easier than fridges, so that's why you put a protector on a PC.

If I were building a new house I would get them to put in a whole house protector, because it would be negligible to the whole cost.  I don't know if I were to retrofit, I'm not sure of the cost.

UPSes provide power during blackouts to keep things running, and can condition power when you have a brownout as well as surge protection.

UPSs aren't good for large appliances because they don't store enough electricity to run appliances for any length of time.  For an appliance you would look for a generator, or even a whole house generator, depending on what you want to keep running.  But then you have to deal with fuel.  

Depending on the model, if you leave a fridge closed during a blackout the food can stay good up to 24 hours.  So a generator may not be needed.  A PC shuts down and can corrupt files within milliseconds, that's why a UPS makes sense.

Every surge protector & UPS has a limit on how much it can protect, above that, it won't protect, and can allow damage.  

For a lightning strike it depends on how close the strike is to you.  The closer the strike the bigger the surge to your equipment, so the better the protector you'll need.

Surge protectors, upses, and generators are basically a form of insurance.  They reduce the risk that you will have to spend money to replace things.  From an economic sense, you should only spend less than (the cost to replace * the probability that you will need to replace.

Also your insurance coverage may cover power surges, it just depends on the policy.

Most power strips are NOT surge protectors, often people are confused by that.

Lastly, surge protectors have to be replaced every so often as they wear out.  Components usually break with big surges, but for small ones they absorb it, but that absorption decreases their effectiveness.

FYI in the utility context a tariff is just a fancy word for what the total charge per unit of electricity for a type of customer. In WI I think utilities are required to annually provide you a sheet explaining their tarrifs.  You can usually find it on their website.  It's a long boring document, but you can see how much different types of customers pay, which can be interesting. 

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Thanks,

Nick Terrible
nick.t...@gmail.com